GETTING STARTED
Follow the steps below to help you get moving in the right direction.
Ready
Prepare Your Leadership
Read and discuss the Mission Field booklet with your leadership team, including your priests. Available in print and PDF formats here.
Learn our process, the language we use, and read the full contents of our resources by visiting our Leader Learning Center. Sign-up and join the courses of the resources you are interested in. Begin with the Pathways course. You can also purchase samples of our physical materials to review with a 50% off coupon code found here.
Schedule a time to meet with a member of our team to answer any questions and discuss next steps here.
Set
Make a Plan and Communicate
Pick a transition strategy and make a schedule. Learn more about transition strategies that have been successfully implemented (coming soon). Download a copy of the Pathways Master Planner Excel file to help you make a schedule here.
Schedule a time to meet with a member of our team to review your plan here.
You will need to communicate your plan to your current volunteers. It is important for them to know that they are not being replaced or sidelined, but will be joining a larger team to serve the entire family. We have developed a Session to help you bring them along (coming soon).
If you do not have a robust adult formation, we recommend running Seek and Root for Adults for a group to help form a group of adults at the parish in the model and method.
Once you have formed adults, we recommend identifying, inviting, and investing in them using the Pathways Workshops (coming summer of 2025) and our Beside resources found here.
It is essential to communicate the why, vision, plan, and part parents will play in a clear and positive way. If not, a vacuum is created and can be filled in by chaos. We recommend hosting an Open House on the weekend after Masses for the families to get introduced to the materials and have a chance to ask questions of your team. You can find a guide for the Open House here. We then recommend starting the Visits with your current families as a way to share more personally with them. You can find a guide for the Visit here.
Go
Start Making a Way
It is important to have your team review the materials that they will be helping to implement. Once you decide what resources you will be using, we recommend ordering the at-church content PDFs and copies of the at-home content (boxes or books) to share with the members of your team.
Assign accompaniment team roles for each resource, distribute the materials, and being to meet with the groups helping to implement each resource.
You will need to place an order for the physical materials needed for the families to ensure an on time arrive. We strongly recommend placing a pre-order (usually open mid-March to mid-May) to guarantee the availability of resources after July 1. The pre-order only need an estimated number of resources needed and can be changed or canceled up to the time of delivery. You will also receive a 10% discount on all physical materials and we only require a 25% deposit. Order placed beyond the pre-order season will be delivered in the order they are received. If in stock, orders usually ship within a week. If out of stock there could be a lead time of 8-10 weeks.
You are all set to begin making a way for the families of your parish with your accompaniment team.