As Pastor of our parish I am excited to introduce you to some information about how I envision us moving forward together in our spiritual journey. When Monsignor Fennessy was pastor at SJN many of you worked diligently with him and formed a strong framework of the Pastoral Council and its four Commissions. Those Commissions are: Spiritual Life, Education, Human Concerns and Parish Life. This model worked well for many years. Through time, as with many organizations, the structure lost its continuity. The Commission meetings began to be farther and farther apart, the council started and stopped and many of the ministries underneath this structure have had to function on their own. Since I have been at SJN, over the past year I have seen many of the wonderful fruits of the past work and how our ministries are a blessing to so many. In order to reconnect with this past structure and to move forward we have found a great resource in the Catholic Diocese of Gary, Indiana. This Diocese describes a process very similar to our past one but also expands the commissions to five with one for Stewardship. It also has great ideas for meeting formats and discussion questions.
To implement and use this model, I have decided to disband the current Pastoral Council and focus our efforts on putting the Commission structure in place. Those members who have served on our Pastoral Council have reviewed and endorsed the use of this model. I thank them for their past work and their continued prayers and involvement in our parish. Once this Commissions layer of leadership is in place and functioning well with our ministries and teams we will re-implement the Pastoral Council. Over the next several weeks I will be describing the Commissions and inviting everyone to get more involved in parish life and ministries as we work together to build the body of Christ in our local church and go out as disciples into the community.
- Monsignor Frank Giusta
