North AA County Cluster Meeting Notes

On January 18th, representatives from Good Shepherd, Crucifixion, St. Philip Neri, Holy Trinity, and St. Bernadette gathered for the second North County Cluster Summit meeting at St. Philip Neri. This meeting was a follow-on to the first Summit meeting held last September.

The purpose of this meeting was to continue discussions on how our churches will function in the future with fewer priests and other ministers. The January 18th meeting was to discuss more specific issues whereas September's meeting dealt in generalities.

The group committed to preparing a plan for presentation to Bishop Rozanski by December, 2006. This plan will deal with the future shortage of priests and the probable reality in which the five churches in the Northern Anne Arundel cluster could be served by fewer priests.

The instrument used to approach this problem is a process known as "Appreciative Inquiry". This process helps planning move through the following four distinct phases: Discovering, Dreaming, Designing, and Delivering.

In the last meeting we went through the Discovering phase and we will meet again in March, September and December to continue the "Appreciative Inquiry" process with the goal of adopting a plan to present to Bishop Rozanski.

We will continue to keep you updated as the process continues.