St. John Chrysostom Parish

Parish Pastoral Council Meeting Minutes

January 13, 2016 – 6:45 PM – StevensonCenter

Present: Father Ed, Liesl Wuest, Lynne Schofield, Kevin Haggerty, Chuck Zech, Mary Chollet, Debbie Traini, Susan Hackett, Renée Dennis

Absent: Mark Vacha, Bill Wuest, Carly Tolson

  1. Opening Prayer
  2. Minutes
  3. November minutes were approved.
  4. Pastor’s Report
  5. Awards
  6. St. John’s has received the 2015 Loyola Press Opening Doors Parish Award presented by the National Catholic Partnership on Disability (NCPD). The award recognizes one U.S. parish for its efforts to authentically welcome and include adults and children with disabilities and their families in worship, the sacraments, ministry, service and parish life. The award will be presented to the parish at the 11:30 Mass on February 7, 2016. This will be a Mass of Welcoming & Inclusion.
  7. Chuck Zech received the 2016 Monika K. Hellwig Award for outstanding contributions to Catholic intellectual life.
  • Immigration adoption update
  • i. Father Ed is very interested in learning more about how St. John’s can best support all families, including families who are immigrants and refugees. PPC had a discussion about how this could be done by the parish in a way that is most helpful to the immigrant community. The idea of “adopting” a family as had been done many years ago by the parish was raised. PPC agreed that we needed to be better informed about this approach and other approaches that would best meet the needs of a family or families. Father Ed is going to consult with a parishioner who is an attorney in this field. PPC also was encouraged to read the article on this important topic called “Refugee Rights”from the 1/11/2016 issue of America: The National Catholic Review.
  • Convent (ParishLifeCenter) Update
  • i. Father Ed shared that ongoing meetings are very productive and encouraging. The team working on the project has met with an architect and a builder at this point. The plans are coming together very nicely in terms of maximizing the use of the existing space to meet the needs of the parish staff and entire parish community. Father Ed and Debbie shared that estimates were being obtained not only for the rehabilitation of the space, but an entire demolition and rebuilding as well. The overall sense at this time is that the project should be a rehabilitation project rather than a rebuilding project because the parish inherited this space and is now trying to determine how to best utilize it. The difference in costs to rehab vs. rebuild will be obtained to help the parish community understand the significant difference between the two approaches.
  • Implications for Mass Attendance Increase
  • i. PPC had a thoughtful discussion about how to best involve all of the new individuals who are coming to Mass. We know that Mass attendance is up, but we want to make sure that these folks are also being welcomed and encouraged to become active members of the parish. Group discussed that having preschool care (preK PREP) for young children at the 9:30 Mass was a key way to help families with young children come to Mass. We also discussed that perhaps having care for babies and toddlers would also be helpful to keep families coming to Mass and staying engaged in the parish community. Having the Youth Group provide babysitting for parents to come and have a couple hours of socializing and fun was also discussed.
  • ii. Father Ed also encouraged us to discuss how to get families with newly baptized babies to attend Mass. Ideas shared included having couples with young children get involved in pre-Jordan to start to build relationships and also develop means of continued communication with these families after the baptism. The idea of having the Welcoming Committee take on this follow-up communication process was well received, and Susan Hackett was asked to discuss with the Welcoming Committee at the committee’s next meeting.
  • Muslim Speaker
  • PPC discussed sponsoring a local Muslim speaker to help provide the parish community with more information about the Muslim faith in light of the current events across the country that are leading to anxiety, anger, distrust, and fear of Muslims. A particular speaker was recommended, and we are waiting to hear back about his availability and thoughts on how to make such an event most successful.
  • 2016 Parish Goals
  • i. Reach out to inactive parishioners/Catholics
  • ii. Grow youth presence and participation across the parish
  • iii. Strengthen SJC relationship with/ support Saint Katherine Drexel (sister parish)

Mary Chollet shared that she and Father Ed had met and discussed what they felt were appropriate, realistic and timely goals for 2016. They identified the three goals above and feel that all three combined touch on what the parish should be focused on to continue to grow and reach all of the individuals we hope to reach and include. Mary shared that the goals were broad enough that all of our ministries can connect to these goals in some meaningful way and align their ministry objectives to fall under at least one if not more of these goals. PPC discussed the goals, and there was no objection to these selections. These goals will be presented at the spring ministry meeting (March 13th)

  1. Ministry Report
  2. Update on PPC presence
  3. There is a page on the St John’s website with our names and pictures as well, as anew email address. The bulletin will also include announcements inviting parishioners to bring ideas and concerns to PPC.
  4. Spring Ministry meeting to be held 12:30 – 2:30 on March 13th.
  5. PPC members to mark our calendars and plan to attend!
  1. Ministry Weekend: April 9-10
  2. PPC members to mark our calendars and plan to attend!
  1. Ministry Appreciation Night: May 4th (Vigil of Ascension Thursday)
  2. PPC members to take this event on as one of our 2016 service projects.
  1. New Business / Future Topics
  2. Lenten Speaker Series
  3. Mary shared that we would have a speaker series with 5 organizations: St. Katharine Drexel, Anna’s Place, CityTeam Chester, Catholic Social Services and The Bernardine Center.
  4. Each organization will come for a 1 hour event. The event will provide an opportunity for the organization representative to share more information about their work and educate participants about how we can volunteer and support their work. The event will anchor a week dedicated to each organization.
  5. We will have a collection for each of these organizations.

Next Meeting: 6:45 p.m. March 8, 2016