EFFECTIVE PASTORAL PLANNING AMIDST COVID-19

PASTORAL PLANNING AMIDST FIGHTING COVID19, THE BASICS

By Don. J.B. Nyamunga 

We are all figuring out the pastoral planning mechanisms and we are fully engaged in “let’s do it next week”, “We shall be well with this plan and that” mentality, everyone seems intelligent, hands on and all ideas are being floated around. This may look a naïve approach to the challenge, very flawed process that may do more harm than good. Being realistic and pragmatic in planning is what is very essential. 

Developing a way to think about the key areas of pastoral concern and one of them being the Covid-19 pandemic that is spreading like bush fire allover. That now is our pastoral focus at the moment, our working progress. This will come with its characteristics of effectiveness on the ground and the way the pastor/s understand what he is dealing with. 

All in all this planning has to create a deep faith community and not a government program executed by the Church. Those giving those guidelines seem to be non-Christians or simply people who look as if they belong to no church. The burning question we need to ask ourselves amidst the haywireness of Covid-19 is what is it that we do not know so far? Or what is it that we do not want to know?

Pastoral planning has to result in a better faith community with deep cultivation of the ideals of Jesus. If we don’t center Christ in our planning will be creating pitfalls in our pastoral planning. 

Planning even a simple task can be confusing if people are involved. With more people and communication channels be sure that there will also arise misunderstandings. The very thought of engaging in the process that produces an effective outcome is something overwhelming. 

We are to get involved in simple process that brings in right results, just enough and not also too much process hence beginning with a little too much than too lean. That means to loosen up than tightening up once the project of any sort starts. 

This will call for those concerned to be clear, easy in understanding and easy in communicating so that others but above in clear and workable enough utility to be effective from the starting point, flexible enough and all will depend on the type of leadership.

Planning is essential today because everything around us is changing, the world too is changing at the rate which no one knows what we shall wake up to. Heraclitus a sixth Century philosopher stated once that “you can’t put your foot into the same stream twice”. 

In the contemporary society, the scope and pace of change requires a constant planning. Problems do not stay the same, let alone the solutions. What we have to know is that the spirit of Jesus works in us that is true for that will remains constant and unchanging. But the humans change, physical environment changes, and some changes will call for signs of the times to be interpreted rightly. This means not keeping things as they were, or returning back to the factory settings. 

There will have to be clear-headed engagement with the way things are. What is that we did yesterday which may not work for us today, we have to invent new approaches to new challenges. 

Planning is about invention and implementation.
Effective planning is based on agreement about the present. Most people think planning deals with the future. We are here and we want to be there. We spend most of our time trying to agree on where we want to be and assuming that everyone knows where we are. 

After all we are all here, in the same place. Right? Wrong. The key factor is for all of us to agree on where we are right now, we need to know where we ought to pay attention to out of the mass stimuli that bombard us constantly. We construct our reality based on past experiences of what works and what doesn’t. 

Unfortunately most of the time we are living in the past, thinking its present, and trying to plan for the future. This is where information about the present realities is so important, it forces us to look into the way things are, and not how they were or how we would like them to be, that means giving up our preconceived notions of how things are and how they came to be. Learning is the only sure path of effective planning.

As we learn we discover that none of us is as smart as all of us. This comes out clearly in any team or group, there are some people with more power and authority, based on position, personal characteristics and skills, intelligence, insight, commitment, honesty, creativity and other giftedness. Effective planning has to involve everyone, what we have come to call “level the play field” not for aggressive and assertive but also not necessarily more intelligent and creative. 

We should not use our positions in that way. People will always differ to someone who is in an authority or someone who is in a position of authority. All participants should feel they are legitimate actors in the process, leaders must be careful to express their views or provide information in a way that doesn’t stifle the engagement of others.

In effective planning, what we also need to consider is the element of quality that is very important. Quality is what counts, in short-term numerical goals can prove deadly to an organization and church institute. Quality drives everything. Just don’t say we are going to increase by this amount, but what will you do differently that a reasonable person would think could result in such a change. No matter what goals we set for ourselves, if we continue to do things the same way, we will continue to get the same results. If it’s about directive planning that deals with where we are and where we want to be, and what needs to be done so as to be there, assuming that we know where we are and where we want to be, we can control our movement towards the desired state. 

Focusing on what we want and implementing action steps that look back from the present tends to confirm this view. Sometimes it may call dealing with probables of realties what technically in the pastoral language we call probabilistic where nobody controls what is happening to that effect. 

Probablistic projections are those insights into the futures with best information available and also other factors which may influence the outcomes. This can be compared to weather focus maps. Knowing where you are, and where you would like to go, tolerating ambiguity is flexible in the means and ends, values diversity.

Vatican II has taught us how to read the signs of the times on how to sustain faith communities of disciples who follow Jesus in whatever conditions in the world presented. Today the Church institution requires the astute use of the best human wisdom on how to create and sustain concerted action toward organizational goals. 

We are a Church because God has called us to announce the Reign of God in the world and especially to those whom the world cares little. We are also called to use our human talent and understanding on behalf of this community seeking its life in the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. 

Pastoral planning joyfully confronts change in the conditions under which we are called to discipleship. Talents and giftedness of the assembly are discovered, called forth, respected, and celebrated. Not only from top down, command-and-control planning does not work anymore, it is fundamentally at odds with an understanding of the Church as the people of God.

Although we can count many things in pastoral planning, we cannot measure qualitatively the most important thing: The vibrancy of a faith community. The heart of pastoral planning is a focus on qualitative issues without ignoring the quantitative. 

The notion of probablistic planning must be an essential and ongoing part of the life of a vibrant faith community. Pastoral planning is not done with a five-year plan but it is an ongoing cyclical process.

©Don J.B.Nyamunga2020