St. Monica PPC Meeting Minutes April 10, 2013
1.Opening prayer / scripture reflection (St. Monica prayer and missal)
2. Approve March 13th meeting notes
3. Review path for rest of year/ calendar additions
May - Ministry team meetings
June - reflect on the past year, discern officers for the next year
4. Worship Space Study Group - Julie Sherer
Background - basically our church is 21 years old and showing some wear and tear. It is a heavily used area and some things just need attention. When Fr. Jeremy was here he and some others made a list of things that could be improved in the church. That got put on hold for awhile until last spring when Kevin Starkey said the baptismal font was on its last legs. So they thought if they were going to work on that they might as well work on everything, so they asked parishioners for input last July, then formed their team and began working in August. They came up with nine things to address:
- Baptismal font - maybe making it smaller, and anyways it needs major attention
- Tabernacle - moving it or doing something to the blessed sacrament chapel to make it more visible/accessible
- Sanctuary - enlarging that area, making it all one level, bigger crucifix
- Lighting - removing the lighting grid or putting in something more energy efficient. Looking at lighting in church, narthex, and daily mass chapel
- Sound system - It died, so we moved it to the top of the list and took care of it! Had an accoustician come up with the best plan.
- Seating - can we increase the capacity of the church? Get rid of Chairs in front and put pews?
- Daily mass chapel - looked at everything. Furniture, lighting, sacred images
- Adding sacred images to the church - stations, etc.
- Relocating the vestry
The committee consulted office of worship and art and architecture commission from the archdiocese and in the end interviewed people because we need a professional. They Hired Br. Martin, who will be offering three educational sessions open to the parish (May 25, June 1, and June 15 from 9:00-12:00). After that he'll meet with the committee and work on design phase.
They are working with three guiding documents: Built of Living Stones(USCCB), the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, and the Local Specifications for the Building and Renovation of Churches for the archdiocese of Indianapolis.
Br. Martin will be giving us a master plan (with some input from parishioners as he prepares it) which will help us do these things in phases if we want to.
Recommendations will be given to pastor, but we'll be sure to include input from parishioners as we go. The committee will be expanded as well, for more Hispanic representation, music ministry involvement, diversity in other areas.
As for Parish Council work, especially with the ministry cards and things, we need to do something in the Narthex without waiting for the new design.
Multiculturalism is something we in the PPC want to keep in mind. Br. Martin has spoken about having sacred images that are inclusive.
5. Debrief: March 19th Parish Intercultural Training
Priorities for St. Monica - that document contained good information and was emailed to priests and staff. Lack of attendance by English-speaking ministry leaders was a problem (they didn't realize it was mandatory, felt like we were asking them to go to a lot of meetings in a row...). The presentation is repeatable - we could definitely do this again and it would probably be very useful. Maybe we could take it to the groups too, and not make them come to a separate meeting.
Spanish-speaking ministry leaders have been sharing more and more with each meeting we have. They are perhaps becoming more comfortable with this. And of course their attendance at this event was very good. It was a helpful presentation because it demonstrates how we approach different cultures and how we can approach it with a better mindset
For the people who didn't want to come - how do we change that? If they think they are open minded and don't need to come, how do we show them otherwise? How do we create a hunger for it rather than forcing it down their throats?The bereavement ministry does a good job of bridging gaps and working together well. Maybe they are a good place to start - look at what works there and encourage it there and elsewhere.
What are good places to start working on this? Where can we make good changes? Bereavement, as we said, PPC, young adult ministry, youth ministry, liturgical ministries, and maybe even SCCs, especially with PF meetings though those would have to change a bit to cross cultural boarders.
The idea of having a euchre night came up several times. It is attractive because it would be an informal gathering with food, building community, social, fun... We could get pieces of all these different ministries that could experience this, then go from there more formally to the regular ministries. But it could be a first step to create that hunger, and you can communicate without knowing the language.
We could create teams of parishioners to do this training, so we could go out to the ministries and present and wouldn't need to get Br. Moises all the time. We could also, instead of trying to change leaders, change the model of leadership. Use the PF model of rotating leaders who gather for an inspirational event - try to inspire our leaders and repeat it as leadership changes.
6. Feedback for Pastors and Staff
a.Is there anything of which Pastors and staff should be aware?
b.How does this affect the work of the PPC?
March staff meeting report - they met the day after the Intercultural training, so there was a lot of talk about that. Another thing to note: the pastoral team will be having a retreat in June and in August the teachers and everyone will be going on retreat. The June one could be good opportunities to talk about and re-emphasize our parish theme, update them... If we could get added to their agenda. June 19 will be a day of prayer for staff, but June 20 will be a work day, so we could probably talk then.
7. May Ministry Team Meetings
Originally scheduled for the night of our regular PPC meeting, May 8. The vision for the November one was that it was a time for the ministry team members to talk amongst each other and with their staff person. What is our vision for the May meeting?
Do we need this meeting? We have a June appreciation day that we really want to push. We could combine the two, and make that a bonding opportunity. We don't want to crowd the calendar too much especially with the building meetings. Maybe they could present a celebration of what they've accomplished, which would really combine appreciation and sharing with other ministry leaders. We could have a template for it - just ask for that info in May, then present it at the June thing. It could be like their good news and their wish list or something - things they want to see happening in their ministries. So that will be the new plan.
June event needs a committee: Susan, Rafael, Ed. Coordinate with Mel.
8. Goal1: How can we create a spirit of inclusion, spiritual opportunity and participation for all God’s people?
- Validate/ revise summary of discussion
- Plan for engaging more parishioners in discussion of Goal 1
Discussion:
We need to engage the Spanish-speaking community more - sometimes they feel like once they've gotten their sacraments they're all set and don't come back.
We have a specific goal for inclusion that we've been talking about: we want to integrate some of the liturgical ministries – Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion and perhaps ushers, servers, even readers, but especially EMs. Let's go ahead with this one, even though we are still studying, because it could be a simple thing to do. So let's just have Fr. Todd go to tomorrow's liturgy meeting and tell them we want an exchange of EMs between Masses. Not mass Mass changes, but some here and there just going to different Masses.
What do we want to see from this? We might like to hear from the EMs, but for the people in general, probably no news is good news! If parishioners just roll with this, it will be a good sign of acceptance and multiculturalism.
Let's revise our summary document and approve it and then use it to get feedback from parishioners.
General comments:
Four bullet points: evangelization, communication, sharing time together as a community, and leadership development.
Our chart from the other meeting is an organizational chart that will help us grow, understand and share our ideas, and put them in practice. Using this we will be sure to follow God's will for us.
Under the third bullet, fourth sub-bullet, we want to say "parish-wide, smaller group settings, and one-on-one conversation"
Under the last bullet, along with skills, we need caring and love to want to invite the other culture. And beyond extending invitations, we want to engage and maintain their participation.
So we'll revise this document and send it back out. We need to then use this, share it with parishioners and bring their feedback back to the meeting in May. Then at that meeting we'll come up with a more formal way to get more feedback.
9. Staff Report
This Sunday is our first newcomers' night. St. Augustine room. Carmen Rosa and Lisa and Ed will go, and maybe Rafael. There will be food!
10.Pastor’s report
In May or June we'll look at the budget. Be ready. Income is not increasing.
Archdiocesan evangelization meeting. We should all go.
Fr. Todd is going to Holy Land Monday until 25th.
We did not go through with Men's English CRHP this year because not enough people signed up. CRHP is sort of in trouble, but we've probably had the longest running one in the state! Fr. Todd is going to meet with the guys for dinner.
11.Closing prayer
Announcement - Debbie: US Bishops have a program called "Justice for Immigrants" which IndyCAN is helping put on here. The Archbishop is also sponsoring a rally to gain support for immigration reform. There are meetings coming up about these things (4-11, 4-17 7:00-9:00, and 4-21 4:00-6:00). If people have issues, send them to USCCB website!
Present: Fr. Todd, Fr. Dustin, Anne Corcoran, Mel Ulrich
PPC: Carmen Rosa Hurtado, Kris LaEace, Rafael Rosario, Santiago Torres, Ed Mitchell, Debbie Good, Jose Garcia Martinez, Susan Burris, Lisa O’Connor
Guest: Nikki Schaffstall
Translator: Julia