Parish Pastoral Council
October 2003 Meeting Minutes
The meeting began with a prayer read by Norma Murphy. The prayer from the Benedictine Order was about our life's journey with each other and with God. We asked for God's blessings on this partnership. We then shared reflections on our September 23rd meeting facilitated by Sister Maryann. We very much appreciated her participation and determined we would work with the results of the meeting. The categories would be reviewed this evening by placing them on a chart and listing the kinds of efforts we are already engaged in so that we could build upon them, and prioritize both what we are doing and what we will do going forward.
Attached are the results of that work.
Our next step in this process was to individually decide which one of the three groups we would personally like to work on and perhaps form a subcommittee before prioritizing actions We mentioned that we needed to do outreach to others within the parish in order to be successful in our accomplishments. Clearly, this is an opportunity to tap other parishioners. We are aware of the need to follow up on our commitments. We need to communicate to the parishioners who attended the Listening Session in September. We were reminded that we should focus on a few action items rather than too many in order to achieve some tangible results.
Rosemary Kubera thought that our work this evening should begin by working on the three categories and deciding which action items we will choose. The members of the Council gave their ideas of actions presently occurring under each category. Father O'Brien and Rosemary Kubera directed us t go to separate rooms to choose some action items and bring back to the large group.
We asked if everyone was comfortable with the breakout room task and some responded that we need to educate the people in the parish about what we are already doing as a parish before we ask for greater participation.
A lengthy discussion followed regarding the vehicle for communication to the parish. We talked about the value of the church bulletin. Some mentioned that the format was not great. Several people liked the idea of a separate Newsletter that would be mailed to the home of each parishioner. Comments were made that many people do not read the church bulletin but hopefully would read a separate Newsletter. John Princiotti volunteered to write it and George Clisham would also work on the project. We talked about Our Brother's Keeper as a way of informing everyone about this fantastic event that occurs each year. Sister Ann Marie suggested going directly to the Mannings for all of the information since they have coordinated and worked this event for years. We thought this was a wonderful topic for the first Newsletter. John Princiotti requested information for present or future newsletters be sent to him. Father O'Brien clarified two issues as being separate. The first issue would be the creation of a newsletter, the second may be looking at different formats for the bulletin. This was identified as an action step toward outreach and evangelization.
Another action step under Faith Formation/Adult Education was identified by Father O'Brien who would expand the present offer of scripture discussion that occurs Wednesday mornings after the 9 am mass. He would conduct a scripture discussion group either weekly or biweekly at noon and 7 PM. Many agreed that we would expect greater participation.
We decided to contact Jerry Manning re My Brothers Keeper to advertise it and promote the program to assist them with more volunteers and more gifts. As mentioned previously, this would be material for our first Newsletter. Father O'Brien also talked about getting a marketing professional and Karen DiCileo's name was mentioned as someone who works with our school.
Under the outreach category we heard from Father O'Brien that the numbers of people attending church has declined greatly over the past few years and, in fact, he has had conversations with people preparing for marriage. Typically, when they talk about not attending church regularly they state they just got out of the habit. We continue to struggle with the ideas that will attract them to worship at Sacred Heart. Rosemary Kubera mentioned that one priest focused on promoting social events to attract people to just come to the events--with the hope that they would then come to worship.
To recap our action steps:
1. Develop a Newsletter
2. Promote and conduct additional Scripture meetings
3. Promote and market the "Giving Tree."
We concluded the meeting by discussing the format of the meeting. We thought there was a great deal of participation, energy, spirit and many shared ideas. We want to focus on communication to our parishioners expanding on their education of what we do as a parish. We then would go to them and invite more participation.
Communication on results from the listening session may occur in the Spring of 2004.
Our next Parish Council meeting will be November 18, 2003 at 7:30 PM.
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Evangelization/Outreach
Ministry Fair |
Faith Formation/Adult Education
Bible Class |
Social Justice
Giving Tree |