NEWS:  Today's agenda:

Today begins the work of creating objectives and goals around the three building blocks participants had voted on at last week's meeting and, please bring with you the PT Exercise Workbook which has all of the exercises we completed for sessions 1-6.

Building Blocks Selected                 Parish Transformation Fall Workbook Pages
1. Catechesis                                             31- 33
2. Call to Holiness                                     47 - 48
3. Communio                                             40 -41

The groups and individuals in them are:

Mission  (11)	School/ Education (6)	Finance  (7)
Julie Lynk         Leader Fran Moskal    Leader	Chris Cummins  Leader Craig Scanlon    Leader	Dan Byrne  Leader
Carol Busam Pam Fitzell Jane Holt David Jones Gertrude Lobo Jill Murphy Sally Osborne Betsy Paquin Valerie Walker	Jeff Peeza George Schalk Kathy Smith Mardi Woodward	Steve Fitzell Steve King Nancy Naughton Dan S (?) Ed Sips Kevin Smith Joe Paquin

Anyone who was unable to attend last week's meeting and has been regularly participating in the session can still join one of these three groups.  Please spend time reflecting on which group you wish to work in and let me know so I can include you.

GUIDE: I will work closely with each group to explain their focus and objective.

Mission Group

a.   Assign three people to begin drafting the Mission Narrative. At meeting 10, you will provide feedback to the author(s) who have taken responsibility to write the narrative (keep this to no more than 15 minutes)

b.   Brainstorm objectives for each building block you picked.

c.   Begin to prioritize objectives for each Building Block. The goal is to have a small set of options the committee can then finalize at the beginning of Meeting 10.

Finance Group

a.   Agree focus areas: options are Church Revenue, Church Expense, Parish Capital. The Benchmark Report may be helpful for reviewing which focus areas show the highest relative opportunity.

b.   Begin brainstorming objectives for each focus area that will promote the three building blocks.

School / Education Group

a.   Agree focus areas: For school vitality – Mission/Value Proposition, Catholic Identity, Academics, Governance. For school finances - School Revenue, School Expense and how they promote the three  Building Blocks.

b.   Begin brainstorming objectives for each focus area.

See you all this evening, and again thank you for your time and commitment.

NEWS:

Tonight is meeting 8 and here is what we will cover:

1.  The group will select no more than three building Blocks to write the Parish Transformation Plan for St. Joan of Arc.  Please look at the Building Block chart that begins on page 21 of the PT Exercise Resource Book.  The voting results for the Building Blocks is on page 31. (You may want to print these pages and bring them with you or have them available to see on your smart phone, tablet or computer)  You'll need the PT Exercise Resource Book for meetings 9-12.

2. Begin to think about which group Mission, Finance or School/Education, you wish to work in to develop objectives and action steps for the building blocks.
We will gather in these groups and discuss what to keep in mind as you work on the objectives and goals for each building block in your particular group.

3.  The answers to the open-ended questions are on pages 19-22 in the PT Exercise Resource Book    48 people wrote additional comments about the pastor and his leadership.  Out of respect for him and the anonymity of the writers, I did not include them.

Thanks again for everyone's hard work, time and commitment to the Parish Transformation process.

NEWS:

We won't meet this Wednesday, October 21, so everyone can cheer the Cubs on to a second game win against the Mets.  Yes, I know they have to win Tuesday night in order to have the second win, but I'm an optimist. We'll meet again on Monday, October 26, at 7 p.m.  

Everyone is invited to attend the All Parish Workshop Agenda this Saturday, at Mary Seat of Wisdom in Park Ridge, IL. 

I should have the summaries to the open ended questions on the survey posted next Monday if not earlier.

I will see you at the All Parish Workshop, and Go Cubs!

NEWS:

We will tackle chapter 5 in the Joy of Gospel on Wednesday, October 20 and tomorrow focus entirely on the building block exercise the groups began working on last Wednesday.

When you arrive please go to your group table. After our opening prayer, you can begin where you left off with the exercise.  If you have not read about the building blocks (pgs 26-54) in the PT Workbook, please do and use some of the reflection questions as a guide in your conversations about them.  Read Fr. Ron Lewinski's guide to  evaluating Prayer and Worship. You may find helpful.

I am still working on summarizing the comments from some of the Survey questions. I should  post them very soon.

Each of you may want to begin thinking about which group you will want to work in to develop the goals and objectives of your PT plan.  The groups are Mission, Finance and School/Education.  

Remember, the All Parish PT Workshop is Saturday, October 24 at Mary Seat of Wisdom School, 1352 S. Cumberland Ave, Park Ridge.  It begins at 9:30 a.m. and will end at 12:15 p.m.  Come and hear how parishes were able to implement their plans and learn best practices of implementation.  It's inspiring.

John Allen, a journalist covering the Vatican for the Boston Globe and The Crux, will post daily summaries of the work on the Synod on the Family.  I'll post those to our blog.  The Synod is three weeks and continues the work from the first Synod dealing with issues about family.

Reading Assignment Reminder for Session 4 September 30

•      Chapter three Joy of The Gospel
• 
  
•      Read and reflect upon pages 20-37 of the Mission Workbook in preparation for our next meeting

•Evangelization

•Catechesis

•Prayer & Worship

•Communio

I'm reading John Allen's book: The Francis Miracle and came across his explanation of Pope's Francis's treatment of Capitalism in "The Joy of the Gospel."  I want to share this since group one in last week's session had a robust conversation about it.  Here's what he writes: "Focusing on Francis's treatment of capitalism misses what what was truly innovative about "Evangelii Gaudium," (The Joy of The Gospel) which wasn't the pope's approach to economics but rather to Catholicism itself.  The key line was one in which Francis asserted that solidarity with the poor, as well as the promotion of peace, are constituent elements of what it means to be a missionary Church.  This was a direct challenge to contemporary Catholic sociology.  Evangelization and the social gospel have generally been regarded as distinct concerns.  The former is concerned with bringing people to faith in Jesus Christ and membership in the Chruch, while the latter addresses their material needs.  Pope Francis aspires to break down those barriers between people who evangelize and people who serve the poor, because in his mind they should be one and the same.  Serving the poor, in other words, is part and parcel of what it means to "do mission."

Thanks Valerie...

Valeire Walker created a special prayer card for our Parish Transformation program.  Nice job.  We are reciting the prayer in back of the card before we begin our sessions.  We will also have the prayer card available in the church pews so that we can recite this prayer together at the end of the intercessory prayers at Mass.