By Jennifer A. Gutierrez
for the Register
Choose one thing—and put your whole heart into it.
That’s the One Heart in Christ call for each parish in the Lincoln Diocese.
In January 2025, a diocesan-wide effort was launched to create One Heart in Christ—the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln’s first ever pastoral plan. A pastoral plan establishes a shared vision for the future and guides the diocese’s mission and ministry. It outlines pastoral principles that shepherd the goals, priorities, and action steps to be achieved over a five-year time frame. Led by the Holy Spirit, it is a collaborative partnership between the lay faithful in the parishes, the priests and religious, and the bishop and his team.
Through input from hundreds of people—lay, clergy and religious—from across the Lincoln Diocese, and through the work of a diverse planning team under Bishop James Conley’s guidance, the One Heart in Christ pastoral plan was created, and was officially released to the diocese on December 12, 2025—the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Bishop Conley’s One Heart in Christ Pastoral Letter was then published and launched on Divine Mercy Sunday of this year.
The One Heart in Christ pastoral plan is organized around four pillars: Healthy Parishes, Education, Religious Vocations, and Holy Marriage and Family Life. As Jeff Schinstock, diocesan director of evangelization and catechesis said in his April 10 Southern Nebraska Register column: “The question before each of us needs to become deeply personal: How do I, as an individual disciple in a local parish, respond to this call to renewal and mission?”
Since January 2026, a 14-member OHIC planning team from across the diocese generously committed to partnering with the diocese for one year to support and move the plan forward in a variety of ways—including collaboration and help from those who participated in the listening sessions. Their first priority following the release of Bishop Conley’s pastoral letter in April was to take the next six months to communicate to lay, clergy, and religious about the pastoral principles and goals of One Heart in Christ, and how to get started.
Since April, communications efforts have included: the translation and publication of Bishop Conley’s Pastoral Letter into Spanish and Vietnamese; the creation of an OHIC website presence with information and other resources (www.lincolndiocese.org/oneheartinchrist); the production of an OHIC video series posted on the website and social media platforms featuring Bishop Conley; and dozens of social media posts and articles in the Southern Nebraska Register on OHIC initiatives in progress. The diocese has also received national attention on One Heart in Christ including in the American Catholic Tribune (December), and Aleteia.org (July 30) which said, “One Heart in Christ is both a title and a summons – an invitation to deeper communion with the Lord and renewed missionary zeal for the Church today.”
And Nebraska’s own Rebekah Allick posted an unsolicited social media post about OHIC where she says: “As a Catholic in the Lincoln Diocese, you are not alone. Your family is not alone. Yes, you have your own mission that Christ has called you into, but you are also part of a bigger community, and you don’t have to wing it.”
Over the summer members of the OHIC planning team and Diocesan Pastoral Council have been meeting personally with pastors across the diocese answering questions, providing resources, and discussing the critical importance of lay leadership in this effort. The Sept. 15 Clergy Study Day will provide additional OHIC information, training, and support for all diocesan priests to equip them to embark upon this missionary journey with the parishes. Bishop Conley will also set out across the diocese for a One Heart in Christ tour from Jan. 30 through May 1, 2027, stopping in nine communities.
He will ask each parish from across the diocese to prayerfully choose one goal to implement from one of the four OHIC Pastoral Principles.
One of the plan’s quantitative metrics of success is to increase attendance at Mass and parish events by five percent each year across the diocese. The One Heart in Christ plan provides many ways to do that. A parish may decide to increase evangelization opportunities from the Healthy Parishes Principle – perhaps with a focus upon single adults, and married parishioners without children. Or a parish may decide to choose to grow parent and family faith formation of current families with children in CCD, homeschools, and Catholic schools under the Education Pastoral Principle. Each parish and community is different and has the flexibility to choose which goals are the best fit.
In the meantime, One Heart in Christ is moving forward at the diocesan level. Under Healthy Parishes, one of the asks from the listening sessions was more parish accounting support. The diocese is hiring a Parish Accounting and Payroll Specialist who will be a resource to all parishes and schools within the diocese of Lincoln providing guidance on bookkeeping and payroll practices (Goal 4). Also under Healthy Parishes, the diocesan Liturgical Commission is working with parishes to “achieve full active participation in liturgical worship” through helping parishes recruit new musicians, plan music for the liturgy, providing workshops for choirs, and more (Goal 2).
The July 23 diocesan teacher in-service training incorporated the four goals in the Education Principle.
Work is underway under the Vocations Pastoral Principle to provide more support to pastors and priests in the areas of health, wellness, and professional development (Goals 1 & 2). A coalition of religious communities is working to form a committee to implement vocation promotion activities across the diocese (Goal 3 & 4). And under the Holy Marriage and Family Life Pastoral Principle, robust efforts are ongoing to implement the Marriage Catechumenate with 90 participants attending the winter Witness to Love training with 56 parishes represented (Goal 1).
Bishop Conley says in his Pastoral Letter, “One Heart in Christ is more than a title—it’s a commitment for our diocese. If we can come together as one, focus on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and strive to be a people always living in Christ, we will address the needs we have set forth and do the work necessary to achieve our mission of a close relationship with our God, that mountaintop of faith. So, “to the heights!”
