Office of Parish Support

When I heard a couple of years ago how the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux was courageously restructuring their ministerial offices to focus all of their energy on what happens at the ground level, in their parishes, I was seriously impressed. It gave me great hope that a diocese would be willing to move in that direction with such conviction, and though I never thought I would be personally involved in the project, I hoped and prayed that it would be successful.

Having worked in a number of parishes and dioceses, I was familiar with most of the typical obstacles to progress in the church’s mission of making disciples. One of the main obstacles is a felt sense of isolation among the clergy and parish ministry leaders, and this can often lead to discouragement, self-doubt, and a lack of focus. So, when I heard that an Office of Parish Support was being developed to provide each parish with their own diocesan liaison for long-term, personalized accompaniment, I knew that God was doing something big in this part of the world.

It wasn’t until the summer of 2020 that I had any idea that God might be calling me and my family to be a part of what he was doing down here. I assumed that I would learn a few things from the outside that might be useful for my work in the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Even when someone mentioned to me that there was an opening for the position of director of the Office of Parish Support, I never thought I would be the one to get involved. However, in typical fashion, God is full of surprises, and he gave us clarity in prayer that this was to be our next step and that we needed to prepare for the transition. And, though it’s been a wild ride and only a few short months, God has already provided overwhelmingly for my family, especially through the amazing people he has allowed us to encounter here.

In my short time in the office, I have already been given so much hope for what a diocese can potentially do to support its parishes well. The structure of most dioceses includes ministerial offices, such as youth ministry, marriage and family life, religious education, etc., each of which provides parishes with their expertise in their particular field of ministry. This often makes it difficult for pastors, though, in that they end up being the only ones who can see the big picture of what’s going on in their parish and how each of its individual offerings fits into the whole. However, the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux has worked and prayed hard through a long strategic planning process to come up with a structure that would provide pastors and their leadership with someone who is in their corner and who has expertise, but who also understands the whole dynamic of their particular parish and has the time to walk with them in the messiness of all of the details.

Instead of offices having separate fields of expertise, the Office of Parish Support has gathered a team of people with different experiences of parish and diocesan ministry, and each member is assigned as a liaison to a small number of parishes so they can spend time with them and provide encouragement, support, clarity, focus and discernment for all of their ministerial efforts. The liaisons’ full-time responsibility is to spend time with each pastor and their parish leadership so they can best pray for and with them, and accompany them on the path that God is providing. Each member of the team also brings a level of expertise in particular fields of ministry (youth, adult formation, marriage and family), so they are able to provide each other with up-to-date information for best practices and strategies for parish ministry.

Our new structure is centered on the principle of accompaniment. Any real progress in faith, for an individual or a community, only really happens in the context of long-term human relationships rather than just programs, events or presentations. Though programs, events and presentations can certainly play a major role in the process of our becoming true disciples, the effects of them are typically short-lived without solid relationships in which to develop what we experience in those programs. Each of us, regardless of our level of spiritual maturity, needs companionship, accountability, and to intimately experience what it looks like for God to do real things in the lives of other people.

In order for a pastor and his parish leadership to provide the kind of accompaniment and intimate community necessary for their people to be formed as disciples, they will need to have experienced it themselves. The liaisons are meant to provide them with not only a reminder of this but also an ongoing experience of it. In order for the liaisons to be solid witnesses to the benefits of this, they also have to be experiencing that same kind of healthy accompaniment together as a team. For this reason, our office has made it a priority in the structure of the week to connect with one another, pray together, and process what we are experiencing in our work and in our lives as a whole. This is done through focused, one-on-one meetings with each team member and myself as well as setting aside one day each for formation and prayer. We have also regularly scheduled down time together. My children know the team well, and they love hanging out with them!

The “work” of accompanying, listening, praying to know God’s will together as a team, with the pastors, and with parish leaders has been more fulfilling than I could have imagined. I know I don’t just speak for myself when I express my deep gratitude to God and to all those who have worked and prayed to make this new structure a reality. We ask for your prayers that God may continue to bring to completion the work that he has begun in the Office of Parish Support, that our pastors and parishes might receive the great gift of accompaniment for a beautiful and fruitful journey.   
  
(David Dawson is the diocesan director of the Office of Parish Support.)