Holy Angels Church has chosen to continue our parish journey of renewal, by continuing the Appreciative Inquiry experience. Our facilitator, Dr. Christopher Anne Easley, returned on three occasions in Spring 2006, with funding through the National Black Catholic Congress (NBCC) and the Lilly Foundation. Dr. Easley recently published an article (linked) "Appreciative Inquiry...Impacting Black Catholic Communities" on the NBCC website.
          The first visit (not pictured), on the weekend of April 1, involved a day long session with parish leadership, attempting to identify our parish "Passions" - those things which in our hearts make Holy Angels what we are and point the way to what we wish to be. Subsequently, an ad hoc committee of the Parish Pastoral Council condensed the outputs of the leadership meeting into Five Areas of Our Passions "No One Left Behind".
               1. Our Youth and Young Adults
               2. Service to our community, utilizing and coordinating with existing community services
               3. Grow as a Parish, including the building of a new church
               4. Continued cultivation of Leadership Development
               5. Unification of "Parish Visions" through communication within Parish and community
          The second visit (pictured), on the weekend of April 29 and 30, brought the conversation back to the entire parish. After each liturgy, the parishioners met in small groups within the pews and identified why each of the 5 Passions was important and what we should do to implement each passion.
          The concluding gatherings (also pictured), on Friday, May 19, and Saturday, May 20, brought parishioners together again, this time in the Parish Center, to form five small teams to further develop the suggestions from the parish meetings. These results are critical for at least two reasons. First, they are a key part of a process of parish renewal begun last year in our Parish Journey 2005. Second, these results will be handed to the Long Range Planning and forthcoming Capital Campaign committees to be used in developing our case proposal for the coming Capital Campaign. A sixth group (composed of leaders from the 5 passion-centered groups, will ensure that the work proceeds from "visioning" to "doing".
          We thank Dr. Christopher Anne Easley and our many benefactors for this opportunity to move Holy Angels to a new and better-focused strategy for our future.