{"id":1072,"date":"2013-04-23T19:31:14","date_gmt":"2013-04-23T23:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1072"},"modified":"2013-04-23T19:31:14","modified_gmt":"2013-04-23T23:31:14","slug":"whats-a-parish-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/whats-a-parish-need\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s a Parish Need?"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday, I will have been Pastor of Immaculate Conception Church<\/a> in Ithaca for\u00a0ten months.\u00a0 It has been a busy ten months.\u00a0 There are all the regular activities that go with a parish, a school, and two cemeteries.\u00a0 There is also the learning process that goes with me being the “new guy.”\u00a0 By learning, I mean what goes on at Immaculate.\u00a0 However, to do the parish justice, it isn’t just about learning what <\/em>goes on in the parish but why.<\/em><\/p>\n

We need to understand\u00a0the history of the ministries and events.\u00a0 We are part of our world-wide Catholic Church but each parish has its own culture and logistics based on the buildings.\u00a0 At Immaculate, when I say “culture” I should say “cultures” because we are a diverse parish.\u00a0 We have parishioners who have lived their entire lives in Ithaca, parishioners from other parts of the United States, and parishioners from Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America.\u00a0 We are in a community with two universities and while both campuses have Mass on campus, the presence of the universities effects who our parishioners are.<\/p>\n

When I arrived at Immaculate Conception, I realized that one of the areas that needed help was our school.\u00a0 It was that in mind that I decided to initiate a strategic planning process for the school.\u00a0 The main challenge of our school is the same as for many Catholic schools, declining enrollment<\/em>.\u00a0 Through the strategic planning process, we are developing goals towards a strong future.\u00a0 Some of what we need to improve might be obvious.\u00a0 Through the strategic planning process, we are prioritizing what needs to be done.\u00a0 Ultimately, it is about developing a vision<\/em> for the future.<\/p>\n

In the year prior to my arrival, the Parish Pastoral Council underwent a process of reviewing the life of the parish and came up with some goals for the current year.\u00a0 Those goals involve working on needed repairs for our building and a parish survey.\u00a0 Why a parish survey?\u00a0 To see how the parishioners believe we are doing.\u00a0 We did that survey in March and are now reviewing the data.\u00a0 From this, we hope to develop a plan for the future.\u00a0 It is a different process than the strategic planning process used for the school but I see a common purpose, developing a vision\/goals for the future.\u00a0\u00a0 We need to have some idea of where we are going.<\/p>\n

We cannot just keep doing the same thing over and over.\u00a0 The saying “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” doesn’t work.\u00a0 If we keep doing the same ministries and activities year after year, some will survive forever (like celebrating Mass) and some won’t.\u00a0 We need to read the signs of the times<\/em> and respond to the needs of our parishes.\u00a0 I believe this is part of what it means to be a vibrant parish today and into the future.<\/p>\n

When I say “read the signs of the times” and write about the parish survey and school strategic planning process, one might think it is about trying to find what makes people happy.\u00a0 In part, that might be true but I see I much higher purpose at work.\u00a0 For me, the real purpose is to find out where God is leading us and what God wants us to do.\u00a0 We ask the people for their thoughts as a group process, knowing that the Holy Spirit works through all of us.\u00a0 No one person has all the answers.\u00a0 We need to work together to know God’s Will.<\/p>\n

We need to remain connected to God’s Will and our Catholic Church.\u00a0 The Catholic Church has existed for 2,000 years by God’s guidance.\u00a0 We need to remain connected to God.\u00a0 This is nothing new.\u00a0 Take a look at\u00a0tomorrow’s readings (April 24, 2013<\/a>).\u00a0 In the first reading, we see how Barnabas and Saul returned to Jerusalem after completing their relief mission.\u00a0 Paul will do this throughout his missionary journeys.<\/p>\n

From tomorrow’s Gospel, we need to remember that Jesus is our light and we must remain in the light.\u00a0 We must remember that Jesus always remained in unity with the Father.<\/p>\n

If we are to be a vibrant church in the years to come, we must always remain in unity with God.\u00a0 It isn’t about making people happy in earthly ways.\u00a0 We find fulfillment and joy in doing the Father’s Will.<\/p>\n

Through prayer and discussion, may we discover where God is leading us and follow Him.<\/p>\n

Peace,<\/p>\n

Fr. Jeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Friday, I will have been Pastor of Immaculate Conception Church in Ithaca for\u00a0ten months.\u00a0 It has been a busy ten months.\u00a0 There are all the regular activities that go with a parish, a school, and two cemeteries.\u00a0 There is also the learning process that goes with me being the “new guy.”\u00a0 By learning, I …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘What’s a Parish Need?’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-hi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1072"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1073,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072\/revisions\/1073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}