Dear Parishioners,
This week we will celebrate Thanksgiving. We have so many blessings to be thankful for as individuals and as a parish. Come and give thanks to the Lord for his many blessings to us at a special Thanksgiving Mass at 9 am this Thursday, Nov. 23. Eucharist is a fitting place to give thanks, worship and praise to the Lord who is the giver of every good gift.
Each year our parishes make an Annual Financial Report to the Diocese. Mary Schneiter, our Finance
Council Chair and Jackie Fuller, our bookkeeper, have done a great job preparing the Annual Report for each parish. We would like to share the Annual Report with you in this week’s bulletin. Part of the Annual Report is not only the financial picture, but more importantly, what those resources help support. That is the pastoral activity that has taken place in our parish this past year. There are many positive and good things happening that everyone needs to know about. I would like to thank all those who have contributed to our parishes and have volunteered, without this support we could not provide the services we do.
Across our parishes we have no debt and all our parishes have savings, however our annual collections do not cover the annual budgets in all the parishes. This is a problem of sustainably in the long term and why I raised the question some time ago: “Should we or can we maintain four church locations with minimal activity at most of the sites?” We are only using about 20 percent of our total building capacity and the costs of insurance, utilities and maintenance continue to rise.
We have to start thinking as one and thinking long-term, given the demographic realities of our area. The parishes aren’t what they used to be 20-30-40 years ago. This is why I have initiated a pastoral strategic plan with our Pastoral Council. We have to take our parish from “maintenance to mission”; we have to focus on what our mission is in South Stevens County. Our mission will be what prioritizes our use of resources and centers around five key areas: Worship, Fellowship, Discipleship, Service and Evangelization.
And finally, last month I presented to both the Finance and Pastoral Councils the idea of making one parish from our presently four individual parish corporations. The proposal to the Bishop would be to make one parish with three parish missions with each mission maintaining its name, location, and mass time. Both Councils were supportive of this idea. This would simplify our parish administration and align our area to the reality of how things currently operate.
The Parish Annual Report will be available on the website Nov. 19