Discerning Mission - Week 2
Mission is Core to the Church
Questions in Preparation for Week 2
12th October 2026
Since the Church does not exist for her own sake but for mission it is important to both identify where our local Church is engaging in evangelising activities but also to evaluate them.
1) Which works of mission, carried out by clergy and laity, can you identify in your deanery and diocese? Identify some of the many good examples of witnessing to the Good News which are already being experienced?
2) Encountering Christ and helping others to encounter Him. The Church does not exist for her own sake, but to lead every person to an encounter with the Lord; and so it is not enough to ask whether an activity is well organized, whether it is well attended, or whether it has been running for many years; we must ask whether it truly leads to Christ, whether it brings the Gospel into contact with the real lives of the people.
3) The formation of the People of God. Do our activities encourage growth in faith? Do they form missionary disciples? Do they help to develop ecclesial responsibility? Do they foster a mature faith, capable of translating into concrete choices of life and service?
Questions 2 and 3 are based on some of Pope Leo’s questions for the Diocese of Rome’s Ecclesial Assembly on 18th September 2026.
Please note that when you speak during the First Round on Monday you do not need to try and answer every question posed above but only address those issues which you think are most important. However, it is important that you stick to the topic. Each week we will delve deeper into discerning mission within our diocese today.
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WEEK 2 MONDAY PRESENTATION BY BISHOP BRIAN – MISSION IS CORE
Good evening and welcome to our second session of Discerning Mission.
I am grateful for the commitment and hard work that you will give over the next two months. It is a sign of your love for God and His Church.
Some Brief Reminders about our Discernment Process
Prayer and preparation are essential for good discernment. We are trying to discover and follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit so we must firstly be prayerful: listening to God’s Word and asking for the grace of listening and responding positively. Please pray daily for the grace of openness throughout these two months.
Secondly, let me remind you that each Wednesday material relevant to the following Monday’s topic will be posted on our diocesan Led by the Spirit website, which can be reached through the link already shared with you or via our diocesan website. These materials provide useful background information and questions, so please use them as part of your reflection prior to each Monday session.
You have been given three questions. In Round 1 you do not have to address all three questions. You have been given a few days to reflect on the topic so please share what you consider are the most important points. Other participants will mention ideas you have not and so the dialogue widens. Round 2 will deepen the process when you share what touched you when listening to the others. Round 3 will be an open discussion before listening to the other 8 Small Groups from across diocese during the Plenary. Your submitted reports, fruit of your prayerful sharing and listening, will be the core material for discernment.
Mission is Core to the Church
I initiated Led by the Spirit with a Pastoral Letter in which I wrote “Living as we do, in changing times, our most important questions as a diocese are: What is God’s will for us today? How can we become more effective missionaries? How can our witness to Christ grow? Our central aim must be to discern God’s will and not our own. It is God’s Church and He knows how He wants us to develop as His missionaries in today’s Highlands and Islands”. Therefore, from the very outset I have emphasised that our discernment must focus on mission because the Church exists for mission. Everything else is secondary to, and must be supportive of, our mission.
The Second Vatican Council and every Pope since, have often described the Church’s mission in terms of ‘communion’. Communion means ‘intimate sharing’ or ‘deep connection’. This word ‘communion’ is familiar to us – for example, Holy Communion. When we receive Holy Communion Jesus draws us into an intimate relationship with Him. In the same way we can say that the Church’s mission is to encourage people into communion (intimate sharing) with Christ but also into communion (deep connection/bond) with all humanity. The Church, and so each baptised person and Christian community, is called to help people spiritually (by providing opportunities to encounter God - for example, through His Word, the Sacraments, listening, prayer, catechesis etc) but also to serve them in their daily lives (generating community, seeking justice, building peace, supporting family life, assisting the poor and vulnerable, bringing Christian values into every sphere of society etc).
Throughout our diocese, in parish communities and by individual Christians there are many, many examples of witness to Christ. The first question this evening asks you to identify some examples of mission, where people are witnessing to Christ through worship, prayer, sharing their faith and through practical deeds of loving service to their brothers and sisters.
However, because mission is central to the Church, the Church asks us to evaluate our missionary endeavours. Last month Pope Leo asked the Diocesan Assembly of Rome to discern the effectiveness of their activities. Therefore, we too ask: Do our activities bring people closer to Christ? Do they form a mature People of God, do they form missionary disciples?
I appreciate that these questions present challenges. After all, what God does within a person is mysterious. Nevertheless, we can tentatively see some signs of our activities effectiveness, and this is what the Church asks us to discern. Only then can we further develop what is successful, decide what to do with what does not seem to be successful while also identifying new areas of mission to which the Lord may be calling us.
Resources that may be especially helpful this week:
