Ministries

Dear sisters & brothers in Christ,

I pray that you are blessed and doing well. It is hard to believe that summer is over and we are into October. We met earlier this week to start making plans for Advent & Christmas. It seems the older I get the faster time flies by. I do want to thank everyone who has been praying for my mother. It turned out that there were three separate things going on. Which was alarming since my mother never gets sick. She seldom, if ever, gets a cold or headache. But she is on the mend. There is one procedure that they still want to do, so please continue to keep her in your prayers.

A lot of our planning centers around the hope that we will be able to continue to open up our parish and restart more of our ministries. The two main areas are our liturgical ministries, which you have already heard about, and our Fish Fry, which, as you know, requires many, many hands. While both of these are very important in their own right, all of our ministries are important because they are all part of what makes St. Al’s a thriving parish. Ministries serve two basic purposes: to allow people to share their gifts and to meet the needs of parishioners and those who live in this local community. I am a firm believer that every parishioner should have at least one ministry. As a Catholic, we are called to live and worship within a parish community, and part of our responsibility is to give of ourselves in “time, talent & treasure.”

Not only is ministry a requirement of membership, but in my experience, it is also necessary in order for a person to have a sense of belonging to a parish community. It is only after we invest a part of ourselves that we acquire a true sense of ownership. This really came home to me when I started observing those who joined The Church through the RCIA process. Generally speaking, these people are super excited to become a member. They are eager to be baptized and join in the life of the parish. The shocking part came when I realized that after only 1-2 years many of them were gone. I asked myself, “What happened to that fire? ...to all that excitement?” I realized that many of those who left had never joined a ministry. They stayed on the fringes, always looking in rather than joining in and truly becoming a contributing member. Which is necessary if you truly want to develop relationships, even friendships, with other parishioners, and feel that you are invested and that St. Al’s is home.

I realize that it can be hard to get going again after being at home for so long. And so, I am inviting each and every one of you to get up and join a ministry. Some are saying to me, “No one has called me.” Don’t wait for a phone call. Except for a very few ministries that require a special invitation/initiation/age requirement, most are open to everyone. So call the office or go to our web page and find out who the leader is or when & where they meet and join in the fun. There truly are ministries to fit all types of talents and time limitations. If you can’t find one then I invite you to talk with Fr. Chung or I or one of the staff. It takes a village to build a community, and it takes a community to build the kingdom and spread the Good News of Jesus Christ. God bless!

In the Redeemer, Fr. Rick