• In Attendance:  Reno Sartori, Becky Estep, Jeanne Singh, Laura Hack (six usual attendants contacted Laura that they had to be absent)
   
  1.            The meeting was called to order at 7:00pm and the opening prayer included "Open My Eyes      Lord".
   
  2.            March's minutes were reviewed and approved (sorry, I accidentally didn't update the meeting date—March 15^th, on the heading. )
   
  3.            Looking forward to May's meeting, originally scheduled for May 17^th, there was discussion in regard to it being the same evening as Mary, Queen School's Graduation Mass and Ceremony.  It was decided to move our next meeting date to Thursday, May 24^th, 7pm, in the ELC Conference Room.  (Since this April 19^th meeting, the parish office has confirmed the room reservation.)      We discussed the unfortunate reality that after our Mary, Queen School students have spent the majority of their last nine years at the parish, the students are entering a time of transition when our Evangelization Committee has identified that we often lose the participation of some students and their families.  We feel our parish needs to realize that our youth's eighth grade graduation is an achievement not only for the student and parochial school, but for our entire MQHR community as well.  In celebrating with them, maybe a greater part of our parish community will see their responsibility in supporting our school and youth-at-large.  We would like for the Evangelization Committee (EC) members to try to attend the Mass and/or Ceremony.  Laura will be contacting each of the EC members for their signature and a congratulations card will be sent to each MQ graduate.
   
  4.            Because of the #3 discussion above, we realized we had begun working towards the parish's goal and objective towards educating our parish about Evangelization.  We tried to identify other times of transition for our parishioners where we could focus on being more supportive.  We all have times of transition in our lives and whether the transitions put us at risk to wander from our faith, or not, the support of our parish community is appreciated.  Laura shared that last August our CRE for Early Childhood—Michelle Cobb, started staying in contact with the families of all of the newly baptized at MQ.  Michelle sends the infant birthday cards and keeps the families updated with Formation news.  The idea is to stay in contact with the families until we can tell them we have a place waiting for their child in the two-year-old program.  Once the child is in our Formation Program, the family begins to make many more connections within the parish. (Following Easter Vigil, the elementary-aged and youth who come into full communion with the church through the RCIA Program are also encouraged with automatically being given the name of their new teacher and room number for their attendance in weekly Formation..)     We were able to identify the following transition times:

  • Baptism to Early Childhood Formation
  • Eighth grade graduation of our MQ students
  • High School graduation of our students at Lexington Catholic –identifiable through parish records

                 (It was noted that students of our parish who were not at MQ School or Lexington Catholic would be          difficult to identify.  The possibility of a student             
   receiving a congratulations card after repeating a year in school could be hurtful.  We will continue to try to find a way to honor the other students.) 

  • Members of the military. 

   
  5.            We agreed to start sending graduation cards to our eighth grade MQ School students and Lexington Catholic graduates.    There was a long discussion in regard to our parishioners who are in the military and have to be away for long or short periods of time.  We are investigating to see if there has been prior interest from someone who might want to lead this ministry.  When interested people have been identified, we will help the leadership in identifying the parishioners, and hopefully be able to lend support to their families as well.  We were also curious as to the need for families who have members on long-term job assignments, prison, or others.  Included were our young adults who naturally transition to college.  We are going to see how active our 'care package' ministry is and whether we can help empower them with additional members.   We also discussed the need to provide support for the families who's loved ones were away.  Information was shared in regard to prison ministry.  (We discussed the ministries of Susan and Dale Recinella, and Dale's books:  Now I Walk on Death Row and The Biblical Truth about America's Death Penalty.)      EC members are asked to please think of additional times-of-transition in our parishioners' lives when the support of our parish or EC could make a difference in helping them stay connect to their faith community.
   
  6. The four of us shared our homework assignments, and John Mitchell's was read aloud.                 (Reminder:  The homework was to pick out someone you don't know at Mass.  Approach the person, introduce yourself, and find out their name.  Tell them about yourself and ask them to share about their selves.  Express your happiness in meeting them.)  This was a wonderful experience and we agreed that if we were able to do what we intend as an Evangelization Committee, our experiences will be common daily occurrences for each of us and our parishioners.
   
  7. Before leaving on his trip, John left Laura with the info on the purchase of crucifix pins.  The idea is to have them blessed, Evangelization Committee members wear them.  If you feel moved by someone you meet give them the pin and let them know that it's a ministry of MQ's Evangelization Committee and for them to please pass the pin along to someone else when they feel called to do so.  John has attested on several occasions about the many comments he receives about his own crucifix pin. The only drawback was not knowing if or what kind of budget the EC had.  John priced them at $120 for 48 pins.  Reno has very generously offered to buy our first set of 48.            Also, before leaving on his trip, John left Laura a sample bulletin announcement/insert, encouraging parishioners to swap their current license plates for "In God We Trust" plates.  This is a free process.  John has been challenged several times in regard to it being a free process, but he has actually done it himself.  We will initiate the effort as the EC.  If the ad is done as an insert we will put the Evangelization Prayer on the back of the ad.
   
  8.  The Closing Prayer was said at 8:25 and included the Collect for the Second Sunday of Easter.
  
  lhack

  last updated 08/25/2013