The primary purpose of the Diocese of the Midwest’s Mission planting effort is to deliver growth to the Diocese by planting new Orthodox communities and nurturing them into healthy, vibrant parishes that give Glory to God.
The Diocese is attempting to use a systematic approach to developing missions. That approach aims to conserve the Diocese’ limited resources and accelerate the calendar time from the first establishment of a mission community to it’s maturation into a healthy permanent parish.
Specific elements of the evolving approach include:
- Selecting high opportunity sites for planting new missions.
- Harvesting and applying the Diocese’s best experience and insight to remove barriers and take actions that enable growth and health of missions
- Overseeing direct cash grants and selective training and development to mission communities
- Identifying unsuccessful mission efforts sooner so as to redirect energies and resources to more fruitful opportunities.
- Setting proper expectations and accountability for all involved
Target goals and measures of success of the mission development effort are:
- A ‘crop’ of 10-15 healthy new parishes is delivered to the Diocese every ten years (1-2 per year) and;
- Four out of five of the communities that become designated as missions (plants) grow to become parishes of 50 or more persons within five years and;
- Three out of five of the missions which become parishes grow to a size of 150 persons within 15 years of their initial planting.
- Parishes that result from the mission program serve a broad cross section of the communities in which they are located.
