Parish Pastoral Council Minutes - March 25, 2024

Parish Pastoral Council Minutes
Monday, March 25, 2024

In Attendance: Fr. Guy Roberts, Matt Sierp, Patty Cain, Connie Merkel, Amberlie O’Toole, Ryan Schnarr, Joe Sheehan, Ben Laker, Ja-Deen Johnson, Theresa Roberts

Father Guy opened the meeting with a prayer and shared a reflection.
Approval for the minutes has been bumped to the next meeting since quorum wasn’t met.

Pastor’s Report:  Father Guy shared that Theresa Roberts is now on parish council as the new representative of the Engagement Committee. Father McCaslin held a Lenten mission at St. Barnabas. The Covenant renewal has been occurring the last two weeks. 
Ja-Deen shared that we started with around 1300 pledges to be picked up and 500-600 of those had to be mailed. She said they are working on determining which families are still parishioners. Connie suggested that following up with non-active parishioners might be a task for the engagement committee.
Father Guy shared that holy week services are occurring this week. A Divine mercy holy hour will take place on the Second Sunday of Easter. Staff changes have been happening. Joe Sheehan will be leaving; Ja-Deen has stepped into the role as business manager and Matt Sierp is now the accounts manager.

Principal’s Report: Ryan shared that this was the first day back to school after spring break. A Fire drill was held today. School enrollment is looking strong. There is a waitlist for Kindergarten. There is discussion of whether to add a 3rd class. The report came back from the Superintendent of Schools. St. Barnabas was highly commended on its communication regarding the transition to tuition and the choice scholarship dollars.
Ryan said he has tasked the school commission with creating a marketing plan for the school. 

Financial and Operational Report:
Ja-Deen shared that February was not closed yet but we are looking better than budget by about $15,000.  We are lagging about $23K down from last year for the fiscal year but there is a sizeable donation expected soon that would make up that difference.  Matt has started filling out some of the choice scholarships for the year.

Pastoral Vision: Father Guy added now that the engagement committee has been formed, work begins on forming the Stewardship committee.
Connie Merkel and Patty Cain said that Outreach is close to being done with the Pastoral Vision. Each month they go through each part of the vision, asking “What are we doing now that addresses those goals?” and “What are we doing to enhance those goals?”

The idea was brought up to have each commission take turns giving an update each month about how they are doing with implementing the pastoral vision.
The amendment of the council bi-laws pertaining to the quorum size will be held at the next meeting since quorum wasn’t met today.
Matt suggested to also change stewardship seat to engagement in the bi-laws since there is currently no stewardship committee.

Teresa Roberts said the Engagement Committee is reading the book “Growing an engaged church”. They are defining and discussing what the engagement commission is and how we can apply this to our parish. She was predicting by next Fall they will be moving along into addressing the different commissions. 

Faith Formation: This is Joe Sheehan’s last meeting as he transitions to a new career. He shared that they had a great year in faith formation. 9 individuals are coming into the church at the Easter Vigil.

Father Guy closed the meeting with a blessing.

The next Parish Council meeting will be Monday April 22nd, at 7 pm.