Parish Pastoral Council Minutes - February 27th 2023
In Attendance: Father Guy Roberts, Deacon Tom Hosty, Matt Sierp, Joe Sheehan, Ryan Schnarr, Amberlie O’Toole, Ben Laker, Wendy McCoy, Jeremy Schoettle, Connie Merkel, Patty Cain, Steve Looney, Claire Jackson, Mark Rund
Father Guy opened the meeting with a prayer. Father Guy shared a reading from Matthew & a reflection of the reading.
The Minutes from the January meeting were approved.
Pastor’s Report: Father Guy reviewed what all we have done in regards to the Parish Vision- Discipleship phase, ME25 Gallup Poll, asking specific ministries about their goals/vision, and collating results by the parish council.
We have our Mission statement established, “Go and make disciples..” Matthew 28:18-20
Father proposed: How do we live it out right now at St. Barnabas? He mentioned that Stewardship underlies the 4 columns of hospitality, prayer, service, faith formation. He will be focusing on one of these in each of the upcoming homilies. The pitch for the covenant renewal will be coming up at Mass. All ministries/individuals have to arrive at the same destination. What are our action steps? In 12 months time, we will look at how we did to arrive at the destination. We will need ministries to evaluate that and give reports to parish council. The thought is to possibly give a ME25 poll again in 5, no sooner than 3, years.
Principal’s Report: Ryan Schnarr shared that National Chin Day was celebrated in February. February 20th is National Chin Day, but it was done on a different day at St. Barnabas since school wasn’t in session that day. Paul Hnin helped to coordinate. The St. Barnabas students celebrated Mardi Gras for the first schoolwide celebration. The school will do a Lenten Reconciliation Service this Friday. The 7th graders led Stations of the Cross last Friday. Living Stations will be done by the 8th grade class in the coming weeks. Spring break will be the last week of March and then Holy week will follow. Registration is going on now for the next school year. Quest for Excellence was this past Saturday. The teams did well, taking home the Super Quiz win. The junior high musical is coming up in April.
Financial and Operational Report: January tithing was really good and we are now $25,000 above budget. The year to date tithing is $1,387,239; $1,388,101 last year; Budget $1,361,953.
Stewardship Committee Update: Pledge and covenant renewal will be online this week. Paper copies will be available as well. A Flocknote will be going out tomorrow with the digital version. Regular communications about Stewardship will continue in the bulletin, newsletter, and website. A Parish-wide covenant renewal celebration is tentatively scheduled for Sunday, April 23rd after the 11 am Mass.
Operations Update: Facilities: All drywall repair is done. The Narthex repair is still ongoing. An architecture flaw has to be corrected. There is no current timeline for the repair. The New HVAC equipment is a $189,000 system It will be delivered in 6-8 months after we commit to it, so possibly a September/October install.
Pastoral Visioning Process: A subcommittee consisting of Deacon Tom Hosty, Matt Sierp, Ben Laker and Amberlie O’Toole met to outline a preliminary pastoral vision. It was mentioned to use more affirming, positive language. Engage instead of stressing “less active”. Language is important so as to encourage people. Father suggested using the language from Gallup as a guide. Also, there was mention of the need to build bridges with the Chin community. The subcommittee will meet again to edit the wording. This next revision will be shared with the parish council through email for feedback and approval. The final vision will be shared with the parish by the end of March.
The council decided to forego the March meeting since it falls during Spring break. We will pick back up again in April.
Deacon Tom Hosty closed the meeting with a blessing and prayer.
