{"id":779,"date":"2012-07-24T18:36:29","date_gmt":"2012-07-24T22:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=779"},"modified":"2012-07-24T18:36:29","modified_gmt":"2012-07-24T22:36:29","slug":"life-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/life-continues\/","title":{"rendered":"Life Continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, today is four weeks since my arrival at Immaculate Conception<\/a>.\u00a0 If you remember my\u00a0earlier writings, Sr. Edna had spoken to me as I was carrying in\u00a0my boxes to schedule a funeral.\u00a0\u00a0Tomorrow, I will\u00a0preside at my eighth funeral since my arrival.\u00a0 That would translate to about 100 funerals a year.\u00a0 The good news is that I am told that normally it is more like 50 funerals\u00a0a year so hopefully there will be a slow down soon.<\/p>\n

Even without funerals there is plenty\u00a0to do.\u00a0 Some of it routine like our\u00a0regular Finance\u00a0Council meeting last Thursday.\u00a0 The challenge there is\u00a0producing a balanced budget with decreasing expenses and increasing costs.\u00a0\u00a0 Our\u00a0Stewardship Committee met for a regular meeting last night.\u00a0 It was my first\u00a0time meeting with them so we began with some introductions before regular business.\u00a0\u00a0Stewardship is\u00a0an important concept.\u00a0\u00a0Some think it is just about money.\u00a0 It isn’t.\u00a0 It is about recognizing\u00a0that all that we have flows from the gifts God has given us.\u00a0 As good stewards of those gifts, we use our time, talent, and treasure not for selfish gain (accumulation of material goods) but to make\u00a0our world a better place, to make the Kingdom of\u00a0God known here today.<\/p>\n

This afternoon I met with the chair of our\u00a0Welcoming Committee one-on-one.\u00a0 They will not\u00a0have a regular meeting until September but we met so she could introduce me to the ministry of the\u00a0Committee.\u00a0\u00a0It might seem obvious\u00a0to many that we need to be a welcoming community but it isn’t always as simple as it sounds.\u00a0 It isn’t hard but it does take a focused effort.\u00a0 Whether it be sending a newly registered family a\u00a0welcome packet to introduce them to life\u00a0at Immaculate or a\u00a0coffee hour after Mass these things help us connect to one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.<\/p>\n

Tonight I\u00a0have a meeting with the newsletter team.\u00a0 The newsletter\u00a0exists to communicate what is going on in the parish.\u00a0 Communication is essential to ministry.\u00a0\u00a0People need to know a ministry exists to seek out the\u00a0benefits the ministry offers.\u00a0\u00a0People can’t come to parish events if they don’t know what is happening.\u00a0 Communication is also essential to those who may have fallen away.\u00a0 Communication can help people feel connected.\u00a0 People who don’t feel connected can feel like they don’t matter.\u00a0 Everyone matters with Jesus!<\/p>\n

Ultimately the message is\u00a0“God Loves You!”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Peace,<\/p>\n

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

Well, today is four weeks since my arrival at Immaculate Conception.\u00a0 If you remember my\u00a0earlier writings, Sr. Edna had spoken to me as I was carrying in\u00a0my boxes to schedule a funeral.\u00a0\u00a0Tomorrow, I will\u00a0preside at my eighth funeral since my arrival.\u00a0 That would translate to about 100 funerals a year.\u00a0 The good news is that …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Life Continues’ »<\/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":false,"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-cz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779"}],"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=779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":780,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779\/revisions\/780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}