Year Three, Beacons of Light: Culture I know what you are thinking! Since it is after July 1st and a new fiscal year has begun for our churches, you are keenly aware that we have just entered the third year of Beacons of Light! As well as knowing what you are thinking, I know what you are anticipating: What is our Beacons of Light third-year focus?
Second Year BOL Focus: Vision Readers are aware that the focus/theme for this past year was “vision.” We tackled that theme with gusto in at least two ways. Most importantly, through the Parish Leadership Team (PLT) our parishes gathered a team of lay leaders, recommended by our pastoral councils to write a vision for our new parish. It was led by Parish Leadership Team member Bill Lennard, a longtime parishioner at Nativity.
We Nailed It This team worked for months on the feedback from a “Visio Day” where our parishes gathered sixty or so leaders in our parishes to understand what a vision is and offer initial feedback about who we are as five parishes and even more importantly who we want to become. Some ideas that came out of that meeting are that Jesus needs to be central and that we have a degree of diversity in our family parishes, more than most, with a Spanish-speaking community at Holy Trinity and a Black Catholic Church. Other notions were also voiced, such as dedication to eucharist, service, and lifelong faith formation.
With some of the seeds of the vision statement, the Vision Team set to work to craft a vision statement. Over the months they were creating it, progress was shared with the PLT and pastoral councils and feedback sought. Late this spring, the final draft of the vision statement was presented and ratified by pastoral council and the PLT. The vision statement is below:
We seek to grow as disciples of Jesus and to follow His example of love and compassion. We welcome all to our diverse and unified Catholic community. We share vibrant celebrations of the Eucharist, engage in life-long faith formation, and offer ourselves in service to others.
Look More Closely Looking carefully at the vision statement, we see some important things, notions that are especially significant.
Already and Not Yet For example, a vision is a wonderful mix of who we are and what we want to become. In other words, a vision has an “already” and “not yet” quality to all its major points. We are “already” disciples for example. However, being a true disciple--or as it is sometimes called an “intentional disciple”--of Jesus means every dimension of our day and lives is ordered around Jesus and his Kingdom. In that sense, until we are in heaven, there is more a “we are not there yet” dimension to the part of our vision statement that mentions “we seek to grow as disciples.” Sure, we are diverse…and we are far from fully embracing diversity. Yes, we are unified in more ways than most parish families, and….boy do we have a long way to go to change our mindset from “my parish of five parishes” to “our parish!!”
No Name Initially, the vision team had our parish family in the statement. Wonderfully, because we have not yet named our parish, they took it out for now.
Recall the process for naming our parish is with the Parish Leadership Team (PLT) in July and August. Then the eighty-four names, with the help of feedback from pastoral council and the Name or Parish Team will be narrowed to five or so and offered with provided commentary to parishioners to be ranked in order of preference. Finally, the PLT will take all feedback and have a name to recommend to me by the end of September and that name will be recommended to archbishop at the time we become one parish, as he declares that name our new parish’s official name.
What is Culture Over the next weeks, I’ll be reflecting on the BOL third year theme, culture. In the meantime, what would you say culture is in an organization or parish? As well, what are some key dimensions of what we want the culture of our new parish to be?
Have a Good Used Car Available? Two weeks ago, I mentioned Fr. Tomas, a priest in asylum from Nicaragua who is helping us to expand our Spanish language Mass so that we have it every Sunday. As his case is before Immigrations and Naturalization, he will need a car to make the journey from Our Lady of the Rosary in Green Hills to Holy Trinity. If you have a good used car available, please contact a Crescent office and leave your name and phone number. Funding is available to pay for a car.
Good News at Nativity : Annual Fund Goal Met! Thanks to Nativity Parishioners for their good stewardship of treasure to Jesus through the Nativity Annual Fund! The $100,000 goal was exceeded by about $5,000.
Further good news is that this year’s goals are being accomplished. For example, Deacon Bill Staun who also helps manage Crescent physical plants and Allan Cook, obtained, prepped and installed a beautiful safety rail in the learning commons at Nativity School. The most expensive dimension of such a project, the labor, was donated by them to Jesus and the Church! Thanks Allan and Deacon Bill for being great stewards of time and talent! Read more about this good news on page 9 of this bulletin.
Sincerely and with Love in Christ, Fr. Pat
(Page 9 article below)
Good News At Nativity By Matt Jackson, Director of Administration
Thanks to an anonymous donor, we have exceeded the Annual Fund goal of $100,000 at Nativity which means all items on this year’s drive will be fulfilled!
As you saw a couple of weeks ago, the school was re-keyed, which is one of many projects we have going on this summer. These funds allow us to make upgrades to the Learning Commons, especially the STEAM classroom, as well as other security upgrades. One of the upgrades to the Learning Commons, adding a railing to the stage area, has already been accomplished thanks to the hard work of Holy Trinity parishioner Allan Cook and Deacon Bill Staun! Both gentlemen donated their time installing the railing which not only looks great but saved the school thousands of dollars in labor!
Another thanks is due to Eric Nienaber, our Director of Technology. Eric has spent numerous hours running cabling for our upgraded camera system that is being installed within the next two months. Running this cable ourselves saved almost $10K in labor which, in return, allowed us to get more cameras and improve the security of the campus!
Thanks again to all who helped make this year’s Annual Fund successful. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for more exciting upgrades as they continue to happen over the next few months!