Mission Liaison
Standard Operating Procedures

In the following Standard Operating Procedures, the following definitions apply:

Mission Liaison – person selected by the Regional Support Team to work with a parish receiving Christ Renews HIs Parish.

Parish Contact – the person at the receiving parish who has the primary responsibility for coordinating bringing the retreat to the parish. This could be a staff member or a designated lay person.

Lead Parish – a parish currently active with Christ Renews. From this parish will come Co-Spiritual Directors for the Mission Teams, the bulk of the Mission Team members and leave-behind CSDs for Teams 2 at the receiving parish.

Receiving Parish – a parish that desires to start Christ Renews His Parish.

Receiving Parish Liaisons – receiving parishes typically discern a core team of 10-14 men and women who play critical liaison roles between the Mission Team and the parish.

Co-Spiritual Directors (CSDs) – people discerned to lead a team through formation. One man is discerned as CSD for a men’s team, one woman for a women’s team.

Leave-Behind CSD – people discerned to lead the first team at a new parish through formation (when missioning the program locally.) For a distant parish, another process is used to discern CSDs from the receiving parish.

Action Items: Prior to Scheduling Team 1 Weekends

  • Pray

  • Mission liaison meets with parish contact and other staff members as needed to help them understand the complete Christ Renews His Parish process (retreat, formation, etc.)

  • Receiving parish pays their initiation fees to Christ Renews His Parish

  • Receiving parish orders and pays for Christ Renews His Parish Manuals – it is very important that manuals are turned over to mission liaison upon receipt of by the receiving parish.

  • Mission liaison obtains list of past liaisons from Regional Support Team and invites an experienced liaison to mentor/partner.

  • Mission liaison numbers the manuals for inventory purposes and easy retrieval at end of initial weekends.

  • Mission liaison meets with parish contact for a second time to answer any questions, introduce the invitations worksheet and then work together to create a short list of potential parish team members with a focus on selecting strong leaders from different ministries within the parish.

  • Mission liaison provides list of potential members for parish team to the pastor for him to make personal invitations.

  • Mission liaison meets with parish contact a third time if necessary to ensure that all is in order.

 

Action Items: Prior to discernment of Mission Team CSDs

  • Once a parish finalizes their decision to bring Christ Renews His Parish to a parish, the mission liaison works with the parish contact to achieve the following:

  • Pray

  • Establish dates for initial Men’s and Women’s Weekends.

  • Ensure that rooms are booked for initials weekends, Evenings of Discipleship.

  • Establish dates for second weekends and ensure that rooms are booked for formation, weekends, Evenings of Discipleship and Evenings of Pentecost. Weekends should be about six months apart for large parishes, a year apart for small parishes.

  • Establish a calendar for all meetings/events and share with parish contact.

  • Establish a timeline for completion of tasks related to Discernment of CSDs for Mission Team and Leave Behind CSDs for Teams 1, as well as inviting the mission team members and beginning formation.

  • Mission liaison will work with pastor/parish contact to discern a core team of seven men and seven women who will serve as receiving parish liaisons.

  • Establish monthly meetings with receiving parish core team, pastor and parish contacts to review process.

  • Recruiting an assistant mission liaison is advised. Candidates are available from the Regional Support Team.

  • Receiving parish will receive materials from Dynamic Catholic. Mission liaison should communicate to receiving parish to get materials.  Manuals and paperwork from Dynamic Catholic will be returned to receiving parish after the completion of their initial weekends.

  • Mission liaison will work with lead parish who will discern CSDs and invite mission team members to begin formation.

 

Action Items: After discernment of Mission Team CSDs

  • Pray

  • Regional Support Team mentor, mission liaison and mission team CSDs finalize process for inviting mission team members and discerning a mission team facilitator or physical arrangements coordinator (discerned in advance of Evening of Discernment).

  • Mission team CSDs receive access to www.crhpdst.org  and password:  grace

  • Mission liaison helps mission team CDSs identify facilitators for Discernment and History Giving and Faith Sharing. Regional Support Team maintains a list of qualified candidates.

  • Mission team CSDs reserve rooms for formation meetings.

  • CSDs and Facilitators should focus on formation of their teams. CSDs and Facilitators can be invited to attend relevant meetings with parish contact and receiving parish core team 4 to 6 weeks prior to weekends.

  • Mission liaison will work with lead parish to discern Leave Behind CSDs for Teams 1. Engage them in monthly receiving parish meetings at their schedules will allow.

  • Use Parish Scorecard to determine if key activities have been completed. Share progress at monthly receiving parish meetings.

  • Pastor and/or Associate Pastor responsible for securing acceptance from 24 men and 24 women for the initial weekends.

  • Finalize plans for weekend tear down for men’s and women’s weekends.  Mission liaison and assistants should plan to be on hand Sunday of weekend for tear down (usually about 2 p.m.)  If desired, solicit one or two other volunteers from Lead Parish to assist.

Action Items: Four Weeks Prior to Men’s Weekend

  • Mission liaison should reach out to women’s CSD to invite weekend facilitator or physical arrangements coordinator to participate in Sunday teardown of men’s weekend.  Women’s team will leave with all materials needed for women’s weekend.

  • Mission liaison prepares plan to obtain list of Men’s and Women’s Attendees and shares with community for HELP.

  • Ensure that plan is finalized for rest of crew that will handle tear down on Sunday afternoon

  • Plans for Transition of Foot Washing supplies is established and finalized.

  • Mission liaison communicates with Pastor regarding preference for Team 2 CSDs, Continuation Committee members.

  • Reach out to Leave Behind Team 1 CSDs to ensure they have finalized their facilitators for HG/FS and Discernment. Regional Support Team maintains a list of trained facilitators.

  • Communicate to Leave Behind Team 1 CSDs the importance of having the Evening of Pentecost on the formation schedule. Regional Support Team maintains a list of trained facilitators.

  • Pray

Action Items: Two Weeks Prior to Men’s Weekend

  • Mission liaison or Assistant Liaison sends meeting time and place for Sunday teardown as well as address and directions to volunteers to who will help with tear down following the delivery of the weekend. Church should be left in same order it was found. It is a gift to the Mission Team if they have less tear down to do when they return from Sunday Mass.

  • Ensure that 24 men and 24 women have been recruited for weekend retreats.

  • If needed, communicate with parish contact to finalize process for handling of waiting list.

  • Mission liaison ensures that list of attendees is shared with Christ Renews His Parish Community (Regional Support Team as well as the Lead and supporting parishes) to solicit HELP letters and additional food if needed.

  • Pray

 

Action Items: One Week Prior to the Men’s Weekend

  • Review previous actions items to ensure that all has been completed.

  • Reach out to Team 1 CSDs to see if they have finalized meeting time for Evening of Discipleship

  • Pray

Action Items: One Week Prior to Women’s Weekend

  • Assist Women’s facilitator in organizing and replenishing supplies as needed.

  • Ensure that contents of Foot Washing Bin are washed and reassembled

  • Pray

 

Action Items: After the weekends

  • Mission liaison continues as a resource for Leave Behind CSDs

  • Foot washing supplies are returned to Regional Support Team.

  • Pray

 

Action Items: After Team 1 Discernment 

  • Mission liaison becomes a mentor and assists as is appropriate for needs of parish.

  • Mentor sits in on one or two of the weekly meetings with CSD / Lay Director.

  • Mentor helps to engage resources as is needed / make introductions (i.e. Weekend Facilitator).

  • Mentor works to ensure that Invitations Coordinators receive best practices materials.

  • Mentor works with Invitations Coordinator to ensure that entire team is engaged with invitations.

  • Mentor stays in touch with CSDs to ensure that all is going well.

  • Mentor engages CSD and LD as needed to ensure that CSD is focused on spiritual side of CSD ministry not director side of ministry.

  • Mentor reengages Pastor or Regional Support Team for second opinion if significant challenges are encountered.

  • Mentor communicates with pastor regarding his preferences for Team 2 CSDs (if not already discerned).

  • Share practice of option to cancel “Last Supper” to allow for earlier end to weekend and enable Team 1 as well as Team 2 to enjoy Sunday dinner with families. If this decision to deviate from the manual is made, option exists to put out some leftover food if desired and have a closing ceremony which might consist of filling out comment cards and taking a team picture.

 

Action Items: After Team 1 weekends

  • Mentor engages Team 1 CSDs and Leaders designated by Pastor for 1st Continuation Committee Meeting

  • In initial meeting, mentor works with Continuation Committee to develop plan to extend personal invitations to all of Men’s and Women’s Team 1 to attend training sessions related to HG/FS, Discernment, Evening of Pentecost, CSD Best Practices and Continuation. The goal is for each parish to have at least two men and two women trained in each ministry.  

  • Finalize structure and succession plan for Continuation Committee (see section on Continuation Committee and Christ Renews HB part five.

  • Determine frequency of Continuation Committee.

 

Action Items: After Team 2 or 3 weekends

  • 60 Days after the team 2 or 3 weekends, mentor engages Continuation Committee to designate someone to attend Regional Support Team meetings.

 

Receiving Parish Monthly Meetings

Meeting 1: 16 weeks prior to the Men’s weekend. 

  • Discuss role of the pastor with invitations.

  • Ensure that the Core Team is established and invite those people to the next meetings.  

  • Finalize the process for food sign ups and ensure that donations are sufficient to ensure that retreatants are well fed.

  • Ensure that 2nd Christ Renews His Parish weekend dates are finalized.

  • Final decision on space and rooms that will be used for the weekends.  Ensure that these rooms are reserved and have a firm understanding of who has authority* to modify these reservations.  Room reservations will also need to be made for Evenings of Discipleship, Evening of Pentecost, Team 2 formation meetings, and Team 2 weekends, formation, etc.

  • Hand out best practices for invitations

  • Communicate the best practice of establishing a set day/time for formation meetings for all future teams. (Sundays tend to work well for men; Mondays for women depending on individual parish calendars.) Finalize the decision and book the room.  If this is left to the team to decide at or after the Evening of Discernment, dissension is likely to follow.  The result is that politics can kick in and Christ Renews His Parish can be viewed as being run by a clique and retreatants may choose to opt out of formation.

  • Communicate best practices for scheduling space for upcoming weekends. Be very clear about what can “trump” the retreat.

  • *If the President of the United States daughter is getting married, who has the authority to cancel our rooms to accommodate the President?  Bottom line – who all has the authority to remove our reservations from the master schedule?  It is important to understand the impact of Fish Frys, weddings, etc. on Friday set up and the weekend events.

  • Answer questions as is appropriate.

 

Meeting 2: 12 Weeks prior to the Men’s weekend.

  • Communicate the importance of working very closely with the Pastor to assist with invitations. Invitations are the priority at this stage.

  • Review invitations process. This would include plans for pastoral engagement, pulpit talks, sign up process, etc.

  • Review invitations best practices.

  • Determine if Pastor is receptive to the possibility of working Christ Renews into upcoming homilies if appropriate.

  • Obtain closure as it relates to dates and rooms reservations for weekend and formation.  Ensure all is finalized.

  • Communicate need to obtain contact information for parish facilities person so that weekend facilitator will have access to keys, heating and cooling information, etc. as is appropriate.

  • Discuss kitchen logistics and food sign up process. Communicate role of Core Team is engaging parishioners in food donations.  

  • Help Core Team to understand that although they play a significant role with invitations and food sign ups prior to the weekends, they will not be running the weekends.

  • Answer questions as is appropriate.                                                                                                                                                                     

Meeting 3: 8 Weeks prior to the Men’s weekend.

  • Review progress on invitations, food sign ups.

  • All facilities issues should be resolve.

  • Mission Teams may have logistical questions about Masses, Reconciliation, candles, tabernacles, etc.

  • Remind the Core Team that they will be able to experience the weekend just like all the other retreatants.

Meeting 4: 4 Weeks prior to the Men’s weekend

  • Reinforce issues related to scheduling of the rooms.

  • Obtain answers to any unanswered questions presented at previous meeting.

  • Review any areas of concern

  • Revisit need to engage Pastor to extend one-on-one invitations to ensure that 24 men and 24 women are scheduled for weekends

  • Discuss need for and value of establishing waiting list when 24 men and 24 women are scheduled

  • Review invitations strategy and registration process as needed

  • Review kitchen sign up and food donations.