Minutes of the Meeting of the St. Therese Pastoral Council
April 20, 2005
The Pastoral Council met April 20, 2005 in the St. Therese Parish and Education Center. Wayne Schnieder, Steve Hilliard, Dennis Meier, Damian Gerstner, Linda Albani, Nancy Fahey, Tom Skorupa, Pris Pawlikowski, Linda Winter, Fr. Mike Roach, and Joe Doetzl were present.
Facilitator: Dennis Meier
Prayer: Steve Hilliard and Wayne Schnieder
Scribe: Joe Doetzl
Steve and Wayne opened the meeting with a prayer.
Dennis led a discussion of general impressions from our reading of the comments received from the survey sent to all parishioners.
The following phrases were captured on an easel board:
Size:
Access to Resources
Lost in the crowd
“Ed”
Many are in pain – need to address
Unique Stories – How to get to “Know”?
Small groups to balance size
Welcoming/Not Welcoming
Difficult to focus on all elements
Lack of community
Issues of leadership and organization
Develop goals in other elements that develop community
Focus on Faith Formation
Adults need instruction to teach children
Threats come from “outside”
Blessed with wealth/Can be a threat if not used properly
Responses affirm that each element is essential
People want to be loved
People want to “belong” and be “valued”
Invitation
Spirituality
Faith Formation
People will participate when they are filled with the Spirit
Tap into “need”
Divorce outreach
Economic segregation
Labeling – as a way of limiting access
Communication
Organization/administration
Orientation for new members
Respond to those who want, need follow-up on feedback
We then had a discussion on “unity”.
The next meeting is scheduled for 6:30 May 4, 2005. Pris will lead prayer and Dennis will facilitate.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
April 20, 2005 Meeting Minutes
Saturday, April 09, 2005
April 9, 2005 Homily
Fr. Mike offers a short reflection on the readings of the day.
Fr. Mike: On a weekend where Jesus tells us that we shall always have Spiritual Life if we only believe in him, I’d like to spend a little time talking about the Spiritual Life of our parish.
As our construction projects drew to a close last year, I shared with all of you that I wanted St. Therese Parish to turn its focus from constructing buildings to constructing a vibrant community spirit. To that end — and as a culmination to various reflections and planning efforts that have been ongoing since 2001 — I invited all who were interested to consider forming a Parish Pastoral Plan by participating in a new Pastoral Council in late 2003. Through prayerful evaluation, the Pastoral Council was established with 12 members, including myself: Tom Skorupa, Linda Winter, Linda Albani, Damian Gerstner, Brad Grill, Dennis Meier, Pris Pawlikowski, Steve Hilliard, Wayne Snyder, Joe Doetzl, and Nancy Fahey. I’d like to invite one of the Council members – Damian Gerstner – to come up here with me and help me talk about the work of the Pastoral Council and how you can get involved in setting the long-term direction of the parish.
Damian: As an introductory note, you should know that the Pastoral Council has used 2004 to prayerfully consider and understand the complexity of its task – somehow, we have to get inside the minds of 3200 families, understand what their needs & desires are, understand the requirements of the Catholic Church, and somehow meld them into a robust yet manageable Pastoral Plan for the parish.
To prepare our parish for this challenge, we spent time studying the history the history of St. Therese Parish, researching the life of St. Therese of Lisieux, and evaluated dozens of resources. We’ve prayed and debated together. And, we found, that when we truly listened to God’s Spirit together, we could discern a Vision of what our parish can become.
Why establish a Vision? For any organization to succeed it must have a sense of direction, a purpose and an identity. A vision statement is a simple expression of that identity, purpose and direction.
Fr. Mike: As Damian mentioned, the Pastoral Council has articulated a new Vision statement. This Vision statement covers 3 important concepts for our parish.
The Vision statement starts off this way We envision a community… We need to think of ourselves as a COMMUNITY, not as a collection of individuals. Not as simply School Families, Singles, Knights, STARS, or Small Communities, but as a large, but close-knit COMMUNITY.
Damian: The middle of our Vision statement emphasizes what makes a Catholic Community like St. Therese different than any other Christian Community. It’s a place where all witness the Real Presence of Christ. In today’s gospel, it is our belief in the Real Presence of Christ that gives us the promise of resurrection. And for all of us here today, it is the Real Presence of Christ in the form of the Eucharist that draws us together. And it is how we express the Eucharist in our daily lives that enables others to witness the Real Presence of Christ.
Fr. Mike: The Vision statement ends this way: in every ‘little way’. The term “little way” calls to mind our heritage in our patron saint, St. Therese of Lisieux. Therese desired greatly to become a saint, but often felt she was “too little” to become a saint. Yet she felt she could still aim to be a saint. It was Therese who said “The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers… and these flowers are every little sacrifice… every glance and word… and the doing of the least actions for love.”
So when you put these three parts together, here is our Vision of what we believe we can become: We envision a community where all witness the Real Presence of Christ in every “little way”. Listen to it again: We envision a community were all witness the Real Presence of Christ in every “little way”. Wouldn’t that be great? That certainly sounds like a community I would like to be a part of.
Damian: To realize our vision, we must pray about, organize and direct our attention, together, to what is important to our faith as we live it out in our daily lives. The Pastoral Council has expressed this sense of importance and direction in something called the Seven Essential Elements of parish life. These Seven Essential Elements are Community, Liturgy, Faith Formation, Stewardship, Leadership, Pastoral / Social Ministry, and Spirituality.
Fr. Mike: All seven of these Essential Elements are interrelated with each other, and are necessary for vibrant parish life. And if you think of these Seven Elements as petals on a flower, then it is the Eucharist that is the center of the flower. Just as the center of the flower supports and gives life to the petals, so the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Seven Essential Elements of Parish Life. How we, through our parish community, witness this reality of the Eucharist, the Real Presence of Christ, is expressed in and through these Seven Essential Elements.
Throughout this Lenten season, we have relied on the imagery of a garden – Our Lenten Garden of Love. The analogy works well for the work of the Pastoral Council. What the council has done thus far is to prepare the soil and enrich it with a Vision and those Essential Elements that nurture parish life. We know that God will provide an ideal environment for growth through the Eucharist and the Real Presence of Christ. It’s now up to our community – to each of you – to plant the seeds that will grow and provide the fruits that nourish our parish now and long into the future.
Damian: In today’s bulletin you will find a detailed description of Seven Essential Elements of Parish Life. It also includes a Questionnaire. Just to be sure that we don’t miss anyone in the parish, we are also mailing this information to all parishioners. We believe it is extremely important that everyone have an opportunity to help plant the seeds of growth.
We ask that each of you take some time alone and with your families to reflect on the Seven Essential Elements, to pray about them. We also ask that you take some time to reflect and pray about the questionnaire. Then, we ask that you provide feedback to the parish and the Pastoral Council in one of the many ways outlined on the questionnaire – e-mail, phone calls, prayer service, in writing – it’s your choice. It’s vitally important that we receive information back from as many of you as possible – this is your chance to help shape the future of the parish!
The Pastoral Council will review the responses and use them to develop several strategic goals for our community (5-year time horizon). We will share these results with the community before Memorial Day, and ask for people to help the Pastoral Council develop objectives that will help us move toward these goals. Our somewhat ambitious target is present the goals and objectives in a Pastoral Plan to the community around Memorial Day.
Fr. Mike: I want to thank all of you in advance for your response to God’s call in planning for our parish’s future. When I first came here 6 years ago, I certainly did not know what God had in store for me – I certainly didn’t think I’d be involved with a big construction project. But through all of the personal challenges I have faced and through all of the challenges I have seen this community face, I have continually been humbled by the response of this community.
As Jesus raised his friend Lazarus to New Life, we trust that Christ can raise our parish to even greater life than it has already known. I KNOW and FIRMLY BELIEVE that St. Therese is a vibrant Catholic Community that can achieve whatever it chooses to. I also KNOW and FIRMLY BELIEVE that you will respond to this call to plan for our future in ways that will humble me once again, and for that I thank you.
Fr. Mike: On a weekend where Jesus tells us that we shall always have Spiritual Life if we only believe in him, I’d like to spend a little time talking about the Spiritual Life of our parish.
As our construction projects drew to a close last year, I shared with all of you that I wanted St. Therese Parish to turn its focus from constructing buildings to constructing a vibrant community spirit. To that end — and as a culmination to various reflections and planning efforts that have been ongoing since 2001 — I invited all who were interested to consider forming a Parish Pastoral Plan by participating in a new Pastoral Council in late 2003. Through prayerful evaluation, the Pastoral Council was established with 12 members, including myself: Tom Skorupa, Linda Winter, Linda Albani, Damian Gerstner, Brad Grill, Dennis Meier, Pris Pawlikowski, Steve Hilliard, Wayne Snyder, Joe Doetzl, and Nancy Fahey. I’d like to invite one of the Council members – Damian Gerstner – to come up here with me and help me talk about the work of the Pastoral Council and how you can get involved in setting the long-term direction of the parish.
Damian: As an introductory note, you should know that the Pastoral Council has used 2004 to prayerfully consider and understand the complexity of its task – somehow, we have to get inside the minds of 3200 families, understand what their needs & desires are, understand the requirements of the Catholic Church, and somehow meld them into a robust yet manageable Pastoral Plan for the parish.
To prepare our parish for this challenge, we spent time studying the history the history of St. Therese Parish, researching the life of St. Therese of Lisieux, and evaluated dozens of resources. We’ve prayed and debated together. And, we found, that when we truly listened to God’s Spirit together, we could discern a Vision of what our parish can become.
Why establish a Vision? For any organization to succeed it must have a sense of direction, a purpose and an identity. A vision statement is a simple expression of that identity, purpose and direction.
Fr. Mike: As Damian mentioned, the Pastoral Council has articulated a new Vision statement. This Vision statement covers 3 important concepts for our parish.
The Vision statement starts off this way We envision a community… We need to think of ourselves as a COMMUNITY, not as a collection of individuals. Not as simply School Families, Singles, Knights, STARS, or Small Communities, but as a large, but close-knit COMMUNITY.
Damian: The middle of our Vision statement emphasizes what makes a Catholic Community like St. Therese different than any other Christian Community. It’s a place where all witness the Real Presence of Christ. In today’s gospel, it is our belief in the Real Presence of Christ that gives us the promise of resurrection. And for all of us here today, it is the Real Presence of Christ in the form of the Eucharist that draws us together. And it is how we express the Eucharist in our daily lives that enables others to witness the Real Presence of Christ.
Fr. Mike: The Vision statement ends this way: in every ‘little way’. The term “little way” calls to mind our heritage in our patron saint, St. Therese of Lisieux. Therese desired greatly to become a saint, but often felt she was “too little” to become a saint. Yet she felt she could still aim to be a saint. It was Therese who said “The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers… and these flowers are every little sacrifice… every glance and word… and the doing of the least actions for love.”
So when you put these three parts together, here is our Vision of what we believe we can become: We envision a community where all witness the Real Presence of Christ in every “little way”. Listen to it again: We envision a community were all witness the Real Presence of Christ in every “little way”. Wouldn’t that be great? That certainly sounds like a community I would like to be a part of.
Damian: To realize our vision, we must pray about, organize and direct our attention, together, to what is important to our faith as we live it out in our daily lives. The Pastoral Council has expressed this sense of importance and direction in something called the Seven Essential Elements of parish life. These Seven Essential Elements are Community, Liturgy, Faith Formation, Stewardship, Leadership, Pastoral / Social Ministry, and Spirituality.
Fr. Mike: All seven of these Essential Elements are interrelated with each other, and are necessary for vibrant parish life. And if you think of these Seven Elements as petals on a flower, then it is the Eucharist that is the center of the flower. Just as the center of the flower supports and gives life to the petals, so the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Seven Essential Elements of Parish Life. How we, through our parish community, witness this reality of the Eucharist, the Real Presence of Christ, is expressed in and through these Seven Essential Elements.
Throughout this Lenten season, we have relied on the imagery of a garden – Our Lenten Garden of Love. The analogy works well for the work of the Pastoral Council. What the council has done thus far is to prepare the soil and enrich it with a Vision and those Essential Elements that nurture parish life. We know that God will provide an ideal environment for growth through the Eucharist and the Real Presence of Christ. It’s now up to our community – to each of you – to plant the seeds that will grow and provide the fruits that nourish our parish now and long into the future.
Damian: In today’s bulletin you will find a detailed description of Seven Essential Elements of Parish Life. It also includes a Questionnaire. Just to be sure that we don’t miss anyone in the parish, we are also mailing this information to all parishioners. We believe it is extremely important that everyone have an opportunity to help plant the seeds of growth.
We ask that each of you take some time alone and with your families to reflect on the Seven Essential Elements, to pray about them. We also ask that you take some time to reflect and pray about the questionnaire. Then, we ask that you provide feedback to the parish and the Pastoral Council in one of the many ways outlined on the questionnaire – e-mail, phone calls, prayer service, in writing – it’s your choice. It’s vitally important that we receive information back from as many of you as possible – this is your chance to help shape the future of the parish!
The Pastoral Council will review the responses and use them to develop several strategic goals for our community (5-year time horizon). We will share these results with the community before Memorial Day, and ask for people to help the Pastoral Council develop objectives that will help us move toward these goals. Our somewhat ambitious target is present the goals and objectives in a Pastoral Plan to the community around Memorial Day.
Fr. Mike: I want to thank all of you in advance for your response to God’s call in planning for our parish’s future. When I first came here 6 years ago, I certainly did not know what God had in store for me – I certainly didn’t think I’d be involved with a big construction project. But through all of the personal challenges I have faced and through all of the challenges I have seen this community face, I have continually been humbled by the response of this community.
As Jesus raised his friend Lazarus to New Life, we trust that Christ can raise our parish to even greater life than it has already known. I KNOW and FIRMLY BELIEVE that St. Therese is a vibrant Catholic Community that can achieve whatever it chooses to. I also KNOW and FIRMLY BELIEVE that you will respond to this call to plan for our future in ways that will humble me once again, and for that I thank you.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
April 6, 2005 Meeting Minutes
Minutes of the Meeting of the St. Therese Pastoral Council
April 6, 2005
The Pastoral Council met March 6, 2005 in the St. Therese Parish and Education Center. Pris Pawlikowski, Dennis Meier, Steve Hilliard, Wayne Schnieder, Tom Skorupa, Linda Winter, Damian Gerstner, Fr. Mike Roach, Joe Doetzl, Nancy Fahey, and Linda Albani were present.
Facilitators: Damian Gerstner
Prayer: Pris Pawlikowski
Scribe: Joe Doetzl
Pris led a prayer from St. Faustina and Gospel reflection from Luke 24:13-35.
Damian led a discussion regarding the survey responses. We have received approximately 80 responses so far. There was much discussion about whether we needed to collect more data before formulating goals and a Pastoral Plan. We decided to not actively solicit additional responses, but to still accept and encourage responses. We will use the existing data to begin to form goals and objectives.
We formed several teams to analyze the responses received and group them into themes or goals prior to the next meeting. The following teams were formed:
Dennis & Nancy
Damian & Linda W.
Joe & Pris
Wayne & Steve
Brad & Linda A
Fr. Mike & Tom
The next meeting is 4/20/2005 at 6:30. Dennis will facilitate, Wayne will lead prayer and Joe will scribe.
April 6, 2005
The Pastoral Council met March 6, 2005 in the St. Therese Parish and Education Center. Pris Pawlikowski, Dennis Meier, Steve Hilliard, Wayne Schnieder, Tom Skorupa, Linda Winter, Damian Gerstner, Fr. Mike Roach, Joe Doetzl, Nancy Fahey, and Linda Albani were present.
Facilitators: Damian Gerstner
Prayer: Pris Pawlikowski
Scribe: Joe Doetzl
Pris led a prayer from St. Faustina and Gospel reflection from Luke 24:13-35.
Damian led a discussion regarding the survey responses. We have received approximately 80 responses so far. There was much discussion about whether we needed to collect more data before formulating goals and a Pastoral Plan. We decided to not actively solicit additional responses, but to still accept and encourage responses. We will use the existing data to begin to form goals and objectives.
We formed several teams to analyze the responses received and group them into themes or goals prior to the next meeting. The following teams were formed:
Dennis & Nancy
Damian & Linda W.
Joe & Pris
Wayne & Steve
Brad & Linda A
Fr. Mike & Tom
The next meeting is 4/20/2005 at 6:30. Dennis will facilitate, Wayne will lead prayer and Joe will scribe.
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