God has always had a plan for our salvation. He says to each of us, “For I know well the plans I have in mind for you—oracle of the Lord—plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).
God does not call us to be passive recipients of his grace. Through the grace He bestows on us in the Sacraments, He calls us to share the Light of Christ that we have been given. He calls us to perform Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. We proceed on our own journey of faith by helping others (see Fr. Jeff’s presentation, The Journey to Jesus: Acts of Mercy).
It is no secret that fewer and fewer people come to Mass. God wants us to change that. Our attendance has been slowly increasing since the COVID pandemic. We need to do more to share our Catholic faith.
Both our Parish Pastoral Council and Finance Council recognized we needed to do something different. We needed a plan but not just any plan. We needed to discern what God’s plan for us. So, in November 2023, Fr. Jeff met with ad hoc group for strategic planning. This group led the way with regular consultation with both councils.
We wanted to include our parishioners’ thoughts in our planning process. In September 2024, for four consecutive weeks we spoke at Mass about the present state of our parishes. That included the following four inserts in the bulletin.
Then, we held two listening sessions at the end of September and wrote down every comment made. After the listening session we began to address some comments immediately like bringing back the silver Holy Water Fonts in both churches for people to take Holy Water home. Most of the remaining ideas came to be incorporated into our strategic plan.
In January 2025, we included an insert in the bulletin addressing some questions from the listening sessions and informing our parishioners of what changes had been made.
Finally, in March 2025, we completed our strategic plan and presented it our parishioners at Easter and the following week: