Principals' Message

Take the Way of the Gospel

What exactly is a “Mission”? 

A Mission is a distinctive faith locality that lends itself to being lived out in family-like arrangements in the service of proclaiming the Gospel. 

A Mission is:

• A local area, with commonalities in history, demographics, geography 

• A collaborative focus on evangelisation, worship, formation and outreach 

• A family of communities, working together for viability and vitality 

• A reordering of ministerial and material resourcing 

• A leadership of at least two priests, working as a team 

• A strategic and operational decision making with lay leadership 

• An intentional co-responsibility of all of the people of God 

• A pooling and sharing of resources and administrative functions 

• A move towards shared arrangements across communities, working in solidarity. 

A Mission is not:

• Aimed at closing down parishes 

• Focussed purely on data 

• Driven by clergy shortages or falling parishioner numbers 

• Aimed at destroying local community diversity and culture 

• Creating centralised clerical leadership 

• A plan to take over parish assets and finances.

There is much talk in our local area about our future as a 'Mission' partner with St Justin's Parish. St Justin's Primary School opened in February 1984 as a second school in the parish of Good Shepherd, Mulgrave. It moved to its present site in June 1984. It became a parish in 1986. 

There was great sadness for some when the split actually happened. Lum Road was literally split right down the middle from Wellington Road to Ferntree Gully Road. On the Brandon Park side of Lum Road, school age children were directed to attend Good Shepherd School. If you lived on the Jells Road side of Lum Road you were directed to St Justin's School.  

In time parishioners from both sides began to make their own choices. Many parishioners from the days when they were one parish continued their strong allegiance to one another and as a result many of the prayer groups and social groups from that time still meet regularly.  

It bodes well for the future of a Mission between Good Shepherd and St Justin's. We have proved that we can survive a break-up that divided a community. We are now working together to write the next chapter in our story.    

Over the past few weeks we witnessed ‘Mission’ at work in our local area. 

A number of Good Shepherd parishioners banded together to support the young people from our parish preparing to attend World Youth Day in Lisbon.

The project quickly gathered momentum and St Justin’s parishioners offered their support. The word ‘Mission’ was heard a number of times in conversation. 

For more information:

What is a Mission: https://melbournecatholic.org/uploads/documents/Take-the-Way-of-the-Gospel/TWG_Parish-Pack_Introduction-What-is-a-Mission.pdf.

Missioning

Abbie Tiong is one of the young people from our parish travelling to World Youth Day in Lisbon.

Abbie also works at Good Shepherd School and we are excited that that a young person from our parish and school will be attending such a memorable event in our Church calendar. Abbie's brother Jonas who also worked at Good Shepherd will also be travelling to Lisbon.

God bless, Ruth and Danielle