Stewardship Development Core Team
| MENU | Current Communications (Printable Version) |
|
Upcoming Parish Development Meetings
|
We define stewardship as the development of meaningful involvement. Belonging leads to believing! Dear Sacred Heart Community, Your Core Team has been working hard during the past month! We recently hosted and facilitated a series of Input Sessions for the parish. These were one-hour sessions where parishioners were asked to discuss the strengths and challenges that we face at Sacred Heart, and offer their insights into improving for our future. Nearly fifty parishioners participated in five different Input Sessions hosted by the Core Team on March 10th and 14th. Some of these parishioners have been involved members of our parish family for many years and some were new to our community. Core Team members facilitated each session and recorded all of the comments. Below is a summary of some of the main points that were offered at the sessions: Strengths of the parish: Greatest needs/challenges: � Our pastor and his energy � Communication � Music � Staff needs (youth, religious education) � Our school � Engagement of more people � Fall Festival � Dynamic youth programming/activities � Many opportunities/ministries available � Greater Hispanic resources Suggested ways to involve more people in parish life: � Create a formal and systematic welcome process � Incorporate more technology into parish communication (ie: facebook) � Share “good news” at Masses � Increase level of personal invitations � Offer more social opportunities We would like to extend a sincere thank you to all parishioners who participated in the Input Sessions. We enjoyed your company and creative and constructive ideas. The Input Session report will be delivered by ISPD on April 5th. After that time, it will be available for your review on our parish website: www.sacredheartwaseca.org. The next step in our long-range planning process is to conduct a parish-wide survey. Surveys will be administered at all of our parish Masses on the weekend of April 10th – 11th. Please make plans to joins us so that you can give your opinions about our future!
Sincerely,
Sacred Heart Core Team
|
Vatican II closed in1965 with
the introduction of some major changes in the practice of our Catholic faith.
The most obvious change was toward the use of local language instead of Latin in
the liturgy.
This step began a subtle shift from a Clergy centered, sometimes mysterious,
Church toward the inclusion of laity in liturgy. Some felt the shift as
foreign, while others saw it as an opportunity to become more involved.
Prayer became more meaningful and participation in the liturgy just seemed to
make more sense.
Change comes slowly to large institutions! The shift to English was
relatively easy, but the involvement of the laity took time. The role of
the parish priest has always had many facets with the most important being the
spiritual health and growth of all members. Responsibilities of managing
the operations of the parish, although ultimately that of the pastor, has
generally moved to local leadership over the past 40 years. To aide in
this transition the Universal Church has established approved guidelines
for roles and responsibilities, common practices for operations and governance
for shared financial support to keep a level of uniformity across the
worldwide church. Pastors have migrated from 'owning' all the duties,
toward collaborating closely with the laity to coordinate church activities, while spending
more of their time in the spiritual role and somewhat less in the operations
role.
Here at Sacred Heart that transition has been moving along quite well. The
establishment of the parish counsel, Board of Education, Finance Council and now
the Sewardship Council has moved us from a pastor centric focus to a
healthy cooperation between religious and laity in the life of the parish.
People in a variety of ministries have always been working in the background at
Sacred Heart, but we are moving quickly toward greater numbers of engaged members to grow the lay
involvement and total parish
stewardship of our membership.
In late 2008 several members of Sacred Heart and Father Marty attended a seminar
in the Cities to learn about a successful organization working in the ministry of
helping parishes grow Total Parish Stewardship and Development. A vision of a 'warm
and inclusive' parish was presented, where many more members are working together
each adding their strengths to the life of the parish.
Growth in community and spirituality make it easier for all who choose to
participate. Parish life just makes sense for more.
Just over a year of
prayer, research and planning led to our working with Institute for
School and Parish Development (ISPD).
Their initial activities begam on January 17, 2010 when Stephanie Greenwood
visited Sacred Heart to begin a ten month effort to help us create a
structure for identifying needs and establishing plans to make greater strides
in Total Parish Stewardship and Catholic Development.
A core team had been working in the background to get this process rolling and
are incorporated into the process used by ISPD to help facilitate the activities
here at Sacred Heart. This will not be a one time year long process and
should not be seen as a 'flavor of the month' project. It must be a
continuous improvement set of tasks that renew annually becoming a fabric of our
spiritual and social life. The outcome of the first year will be the
establishment of the process to identify needs and the method to prioritize and
act to improve those identified areas. The work to develop an
infrastructure necessary to continuously communicate with and invite
input from all members with meaningful action plans along with a
strategy and a base of parishioners to keep the process alive has begun.
This is indeed OUR process with Sacred Heart personality and member driven
goals, not of a few, but of ALL. With the help of the Holy Spirit and the
cooperation of Sacred Heart members we will be rewarded with a more vibrant,
inclusive and warm parish life.
Current: Fr. Martin Schaefer, Joe Fritz joedfritz@yahoo.com 507-835-2110; Nancy Tuttle nancy.tuttle@mchsi.com 507-835-4611; Diane Ytuarte ytuarte2@mchsi.com 507-833-5778; Ryan Buchele r.buchele@mchsi.com 507-835-3770; Deb Perreault rperreault@gofast.am 507-835-7940; Jack Johnson jack.johnson1@gofast.am 507-835-5629; Matt Johansen matthew.johansen@gmail.com 507-833-1272; Mike Kubat mkubat@hickorytech.net 507-833-3104; Norm Johnson netnorm@myclearwave.net 507-837-4099; Jim Foley jimpat@gofast.am 507-835-1605; LeAnn Dahle shschool@hickorytech.net 507-685-2129; Judy O'Neill mjonei@hickorytech.net 507-833-7644; Julie Conway bconway@hickorytech.net 507-833-7924
Past: Bob Lenertz, Kelly Skogan, Chris Harris
December 2009: Bulletin Insert
January 2010: Bulletin Insert Interview Letter
February 2010 First ISPD Report Input Letter
March 2010: Input Session Report
April 2010: Survey Questions
June 2010: Final Survey Report
Upcoming Development Meetings
September 27 7:00 pm
TC Center