Welcoming New Parishioners: During the last 12 years we have steadily made our church more visible and appealing in a number of ways. We have advertised its presence through numerous highway signs, have systematically improved and enlarged all our facilities, made them comfortable, safe and handicapped friendly.
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Welcoming & supporting Through our Liturgies and Prayers: Welcoming & supporting Through our Liturgies and Prayers: At Mass, the pastor greets and welcomes the congregation after the processional hymns. At special liturgies, after the rite of ‘reconciliation’ or at the exchange of peace, the pastor urges the members of the community to introduce themselves & welcome the surrounding worshippers. Before the homily, any recently departed parishioner is remembered in a special prayer. At the ‘petitions’ or ‘prayer of the faithful’ everyone can (and many do) publicly pray for themselves, for relatives, for the other parishioners, for the visitors and for their concerns. Our 11 AM Sunday Mass is offered for all our parishioners. Visitors and parish households who participate in the ‘offertory processions’ are recognized. At the exchange of peace the pastor individually greets the worshippers by shaking hands with them as he walks down the aisle. He individually greets all the departing worshippers in the church lobbies. As another form of welcoming and support, we have recently promoted and commissioned the ‘Ministers of Prayer’ and the ‘Prayer Partners’. Through public and private prayers conducted in church, at the rectory, at home, or at the hospital, we celebrate with prayer & blessings special personal and family events like new pregnancies, births of children, wedding anniversaries, anticipated hospitalizations, graduations, promotions, etc. Throughout the liturgical year we re-commission and publicly acknowledge parishioners like our RCIA candidates, the candidates to new sacraments, our ministers, the leaders of our organizations, services, councils, etc.
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Welcoming & supporting by Organizing, Running & Attending Meetings: In the spirit of welcoming and supporting each other, we promote and participate in group and personal meetings like those between the parish CCD representatives or the parents the candidates involved in sacramental programs. This also includes the meetings between the pastor and the applicants before the administration of any new Sacrament or for coordination of the annual parish festivals, picnics & the parties of the parish and of the parish associations. When invited, the pastor generally attends the social events organized by the families celebrating Baptisms, 1st Confessions, 1st Communions, Confirmations, weddings, etc. Parishioners sponsor and participate at the receptions taking place after the administration of the’ ‘general anointings’, after funerals, etc.
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Welcoming & supporting Through Visitations: We take advantage of many opportunities for visitations. Our St. Vincent de Paul members visit the homes of our poor, our Eucharistic ministers, Guild members, CCD teachers and students visit the homes of our shut-ins to bring the Eucharist, donate gifts, help around the house. They annually go caroling and distributing gifts at the VA Hospital and at area nursing homes. The pastor visits to bless the home of the parishioners, to minister to the hospitalized, to the shut-ins, and to the bereaved; he also celebrates home Masses, attends to the parishioners’ parties and receptions when their households celebrate major events like Eagle Scouts awards, special anniversaries, when a member of the family dies, etc. We have recently commissioned the ‘Guardian Angels’ to help the needy and elderly to attend Mass, go shopping with or for them, help them keep their doctor’s appointments, fix things around their house, update both the pastor & the relatives on any emergencies and the needs and conditions of our shut-ins.
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Welcoming & supporting Through Phone & Mailing: We extensively and frequently use phone calls & greeting cards to welcome, support and touch each other’s lives. The pastor sends cards to the parishioners in thanksgiving for special forms of stewardship and for all our adults’ birthdays and anniversaries. Cards are also sent by the Guild to new parents, to the hospitalized and to the bereaved families as a sign of condolence. The names of the newly registered parishioners, of the newly born, the recently departed, those who have celebrated some important events, and all those who celebrate birthdays and anniversaries are published in our monthly bulletin. Specially prepared bi-annual bulletins are sent to all the less active and the inactive parishioners to keep them updated and to show our continued concern.
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Welcoming & supporting at Funerals: Every time a parishioner dies, the pastor visits the family. Some parishes join the pastor at the funeral service at the Funeral Home. This is followed by the celebration of a Funeral Mass and by a luncheon-reception for the families of the deceased parishioner. Another commemorative Mass will be celebrated for the deceased as soon as possible. Our parishioners are annually involved in the novena of Masses for the faithful departed. This provides a spiritual link with the departed and an emotional support for both those who can afford and those who cannot afford a Mass stipend.
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Welcoming & supporting our people by organizing & Running PR, Socials, Fund-raising, Liturgical and Humanitarian Events: All our programs are also supported to the degree that they promote among the newcomers, the visitors, and the parishioners the feeling of welcome, inclusion, belonging, and ownership. Some examples are our festivals, picnics, photo directories, blood drives, pancake brunches, mother-daughter gatherings, plays, games, parish cookbooks, plates and mugs, grandparents days, Christmas decorations, church flowers and decorations, Passover meals, processions, recitation of the Rosary, birthday party of Jesus, learning of new hymns, the distribution of updated parish lists, the bulletins, the air conditioning of our facilities, the lift for the handicapped, the support account for the needy, the paving of the campus, the maintenance of our buildings and landscaping, etc.
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Welcoming & supporting our community through Expressions of Thanksgiving: We celebrate parish thanksgiving dinners after concluding major projects. We also run parish-wide Christmas banquets, as well as banquets for our CCD teachers, the members of our organizations, and the RCIA candidates. We publish ‘Thank You’ statements as often as possible on our weekly and monthly bulletins for the services our people have rendered. We use the annual feasts of ‘Stewardship’ and ‘Thanksgiving’ to list and to preach about some of the more significant contributions made by our parishioners during the past year. We maintain a parish-wide phone chain campaign to support those parishioners who have been requesting special prayers or are experiencing set-backs. Our style of running the Parish exclusively through personal stewardship (whereby every parishioner serves and depends on the collaborative service of every other parishioner in running our parish) is our most obvious opportunity to welcome, come to know and trust each other, and provide mutual support. Parish stewardship makes every one of us mutually obligated and grateful as we both give and receive service. The accessibility of the pastor for counseling and for extraordinary receptions of the Sacraments of Confession and Anointing and the accessibility of the Rectory for obtaining documents and services on a 24 hour basis all year round are other obvious forms of welcoming and support. So are the availability of local days of free ‘spiritual retreats’, of adult and children educational courses, of the availability of our library, of children and adult courses, etc. The pastor and the parish organizations and services periodically run campaigns trying to recruit the new, the less active and the inactive parishioners to our various programs, memberships, ministries and services.