The Pastoral Cycle

The Pastoral Cycle (known also by other names) is a tool, a method, of analysis and questioning, not only of problems or concerns that are faced but also what causes them and what obstacles need to be overcome.

The Pastoral Cycle is a continuous process of engagement with, and reflection upon, the World and the Word of God, so that courses of action may be discerned, and taken, to make things different.

The Pastoral Cycle provides for the outcomes of this action to be celebrated, and evaluated and, if necessary, subjected to further analysis and questioning etc., in a continuing cycle, or spiral, as further changes are found to be needed.

It is no co-incidence that the Pastoral Cycle is also known as the Kolb Learning Cycle, because, in the process of evaluating, questioning and changes actions, individual and group learning also takes place.

Stages of the cycle

Experience:	what is happening now, what needs to be changed?
Analysis:	why are things the way they are, and who controls them?
Reflection:	what does God / the Bible have to say about this?
Action:	what are we going to do to make things different?
Celebration:	what have we achieved, and what still needs to be done?

It is a way of life for Small Christian Communities