February 19, Pastorate Coaching Session

In order to assist parishes that have begun the Pastorate Process the Archdiocese is providing support in many ways. Fr. Tim has been part of several meetings and a retreat is planned. They are now providing sessions for parish staffs and the first one was scheduled for today from 1-3 PM (2-4 am my time!) The topic was “Communicating Missionary Discipleship.”

The first hour was sharing ways in which each parish has been communicating about missionary discipleship and/or pastorate planning. The second hour was a presentation with Q&A with Fr. Erik Arnold and Lisa Sliker from OLPH in Ellicott City, where the message of discipleship is the foundation for all their communications.

I set my alarm and logged on to  freeconferencecall.com, entered the access code and VOILA! I was staring at pictures of others attending the session (including Fr. Tim) and there was my image from my laptop’s camera. It was hard for me to wrap my brain around the concept of being able to hear, talk to and see a familiar group people in Maryland while sailing off the coast of China.Of course, like much of technology, there was a glitch half-way through the two-hour session and I lost my connection. I understand it was taped so I can watch what I missed later. But still, it was worth getting up in the middle of the night to be part of the process.

It also made me realize how much I miss all of you!