Here’s an excerpt from our interview with St Paul’s Catholic Parish, Nightcliff, whose leaders and their team, build their health and vitality through initiatives such as this.
Read the conversation below.
NCLS: One of the interesting things about Catholic parishes that I’d love to understand more, is that Catholics can come to Mass often or rarely, yet clearly retain a sense of belonging and relatedness. How do you get to that connection and get to know people? How do you get to know your parishioners? How do they get to know each other? Well, in what setting?
PH: That’s the big thing that we’re developing a plan for. And that was a big thing that came up in the workshop was the need to get to know each other. Now, the priest can be a big factor here and my predecessor, Father Roy, knew everyone’s name, and he had a good thing for names. So look at tonight, 15 minutes before Mass. I’m still running around trying to get back in here, but he’ll be sitting out the front to see, welcoming people in. And I think that was an important factor. People want to be connected.
So how do they connect? I don’t know. That’s a good question. And that’s, that’s what I would love to encourage first and foremost, that people get to know each other. So the picnic I’m very pleased about, for example, that’ll be a really good one.
