STA Strategic Plan, 2017 – 2022 is a new comprehensive plan for St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church. This is a guide for those decision-makers working in parish administration, the Pastoral Council, the Steering Committee, and parish staff. Key decisions need to be made now to assure future growth and vitality as the parish moves forward. This is a new plan-identifying many challenges STA faces, deciding what needs to be done about them, and then proposing specific directions that will help the parish advance its vision. STA Strategic Plan, 2017 — 2022 is also a working plan in that the implementation should come from Implementation teams built around the Pastoral Council, the staff and the Steering Committee who will work to decide specific timelines, persons responsible, priorities, etc. The work and decisions made should go hand-in-hand with this working plan.

This plan is the culmination of eight months of work by the Steering Committee and the Parish Planning Team. These groups sought to listen to parishioner needs, identify the major challenges that STA faces, develop a clear direction for the future and invite people — personally and meaningfully — to become involved in the life of the parish and its mission and vision.

From the onset of this Plan, there were key challenges that ISPD identified in the ISPD Assessment. These challenges are being addressed – many as a result of this process. These were the challenges:

• The need to be more welcoming and inclusive
• The need for better communication
• The need to address facility challenges
• The need to engage more people
• Better welcoming and integration of newcomers to become involved.
• Make a large parish become small