By: Kaitlin Larson
The Parish Transformation Committee started thinking about our parishes mission statement and purpose this past week. In designing our mission, we think about how we want to be portrayed as a parish to newcomers and what we stand for. What is important to us?
We started off by thinking about the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ and how that relates to our own ministries and mission of our two parish locations. The team also brainstormed what the potential roadblocks that may impede us from being missionaries in our own community. Have you been serving as a missionary in our community? Such ideas could be volunteering at the food pantry, involving Margaret Manor in our prayer and gatherings, living out our religion in daily life, or helping those in our community. Jesus and Pope Francis are two important figures that set a perfect example of making Christ’s mission our own. These are the ideas that will propel our thinking when designing our mission statement.
In preparation of write our parish mission statement, the committee talked about the ‘pearls’ of our community and parish. Highlights included the school and its community, unique fact in that we have two places of worship, the homilies and music program, variety of mass times to choose from, diverse community, the opportunity arising around us, being able to be involved with the liturgy, and our welcoming parishioners.
The mission statement of our parish will start to come together over the coming weeks as we look at how our patron saints, demographics, the ‘pearls’ of our church, the challenges we face, and scripture come together to capture the spirit and character of what ICSJ has to offer.
As always, we are continuing to view ourselves as one parish community, with two separate locations.