The journey continues...

THE JOURNEY CONTINUES as we come to the end of the naming process for our Family of Parishes’ patron. While it is only a step, I recognize how much went into this process from the staff of our parish offices to the vicars, the Family Implementation Team, and to many volunteers. All who helped with everything from collecting nominations and votes, creating documents, giving feedback, and clarifying what the process was doing. It has been an absolute joy to work with so many people throughout this process. I am so blown away by the many ways our parishioners contribute to their Family of Parishes. You all have also shown a great desire to deepen your spiritual life and grow in friendship with Jesus Christ. #Prouddad

We have accomplished a lot as a Family of Parishes, and as I write this, we still have to count votes. So, we will be announcing the Family’s new patron at the end of all Masses this weekend, January 21-22 (for those of you reading this before Mass). Recently, I met with my archdiocesan liaison and told him about how my leadership/spiritual fatherhood coach had helped me begin the process of gathering input from staff, beginning the process of reorganizing the staff in the future. I explained to him the process we went through to select a patron for our Family of Parishes. He acknowledged that we are ahead of a lot of Family of Parishes. So again, kudos to all of you. Your initiative, cooperation, and desire to serve the Lord are at the heart of the reason why we are where we are.

This weekend the Disciple Maker Index (DMI) survey opens. I want every member of our Family of Parishes who has received the Sacrament of Confirmation to take this survey. This survey will give our staff, our pastoral councils, our catechists, our vicars, and myself valuable information that will help us in making decisions, understand the people we serve better, and knowledgably create future programming. There are paper copies of the DMI survey for those who need it. Please, take the survey online if you are able. For a couple of reasons, it saves paper both for costs and for the environment and then we also get the results online immediately. With the paper copy, we have to wait until the end of the process to send them to the Catholic Leadership Institute (the organization that provides and processes the DMI survey.) Multiple people from each household can take the survey, provided they have received the Sacrament of Confirmation. Please note that there is a different link/QR code for each parish’s survey. So please, be sure you take the correct survey. You will find links and QR codes at each church in the pews, in the bulletin, on Facebook, via Flocknote, and on the parish website.

This week, I will be on retreat. I am looking forward to the opportunity to unplug, to pray, and to sleep. I will be taking many things to prayer and will pray for all of you, my parishioners, while I am away. Please keep me in prayer, as well. We hope to have a Family of Parishes Lenten series on prayer this year. I hope to give each priest of our Family an opportunity to teach and present. I also hope to have a panel of sorts for one evening.

A big thank you to Steph Pohlman our Family’s Coordinator of Sacramental Life who put a lot of work into getting the DMI survey off the ground. It has been an absolute blessing to work with her over the past months.

Peace in Christ,

Fr. Jarred Kohn