Parish Pastoral Council Minutes - June 26th 2023

Parish Pastoral Council Minutes
Monday, June 26, 2023

In Attendance: Fr. Guy Roberts, Deacon Tom Hosty, Matt Sierp, Claire Jackson, Joe Sheehan, Steve Looney, Ben Laker, Jeremy Schoettle, Connie Merkel, Wendy McCoy, Mark Rund, Jeremy Schoettle, Amberlie O’Toole, Ryan Schnarr

Father opened the meeting with prayer and shared the Gospel and a reflection.

Since quorum wasn’t met at the May meeting, approval for the April minutes was motioned and approved.  Minutes from the May meeting were approved. 


Pastor’s Report: The National Eucharistic Conference as part of the Eucharistic Revival will be held in Indianapolis Wednesday, July 17th to Sunday, July 21st next year, 2024.  Joe Sheehan agreed to be the point person for this as he has already been disseminating information for it.
Next May and June 2024, St. Barnabas will be joining forces for a tri-parish Eucharistic revival. Our Lady of Greenwood and St. Rose will be the other two parishes. Each youth group will create an altar. The altar will travel to each of the parishes. There will be Eucharistic adoration, a Eucharistic procession, benediction, music and food of the culture of each parish.  The plan is to be here at St. Barnabas for Pentecost Sunday, since we are unique with our Chin community and the differing languages.  St. Rose will represent the Midwest community.  OLG  will represent the Hispanic community and coincide with Corpus Christi.  Steve Looney mentioned it might be wise for the St Barnabas Mission trip team to Gallup to coordinate their trip dates so they do not conflict with these Tri-Parish events.
Father Guy spoke of our goals for 20 years from now.  Although that seems a long way off, what we do in these next 3 -5 years will impact how we are as a parish in 20 years. We need to always keep focused on our parish vision.


Principal’s report – Ryan Schnarr: Enrollment is still open over the summer months. 479 students have enrolled thus far. We are almost at enrollment of last year.  All teachers have been secured and contracted for the next school year.  There has been some flexing with science teachers for middle school.

Financial / Stewardship: Father Guy talked about how we are leaving some money on the table by not taking the full amount for Indiana Choice Scholarships.  He spoke of Stewardship as it pertains to taking care of the whole ministry. We could pay teachers more, requests from ministry leaders for programs could be fulfilled and we could do more through outreach with this additional money. The Parish pays for AC, roof, etc. that is part of the school. These extra funds would help.
Deacon Tom spoke of an exploratory meeting he and Ryan had with the Archdiocesan Office of Catholic education. If we choose to go to a tuition model, according to the archdiocese, there wouldn’t be concern with the state as long as we are transparent that discounts are no longer in place. The archdiocese said a good communication plan and having a good reason, in their experience, will help people rationally get their head around it.  The next application for this increase is due to the state January 31st. If implemented, it would then go into effect for the 2024-2025 school year.  The Parish Council was asked to think about the pros/cons of doing this change.

Miscellaneous Items:  The Parish picnic date has been set for Sunday, August 20th at German Park.  There will be no Chin Mass that day.  11:00 Mass will be held in the church and the picnic would begin directly after Mass.
It was stated that all ministries should be putting the pastoral vision in place.  All new ideas should be aligned with the pastoral vision.
Faith Formation will hold a special meeting in July to create by-laws.
Connie Merkel brought up the idea of bringing back the Ministry fair. Joe Sheehan shared that faith formation shares information and resources every year in August in the Narthex.  It might be easier and reach more people if different commissions/committees took a weekend during the year to set up information in the Narthex.
There will be no meeting in July. Our next parish council meeting will be August 21st at 7:15 pm.
Deacon Tom offered a blessing to close the meeting.