Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
With the arrival of September comes an increase in the number of things happening in the life of the parish. School and Religious Education are among the bigger ministries that see a bump in September, but there are other activities happening as we transition out of the summer as well. I’d like to highlight two ministries in my letter this week. And while they’re not in full swing yet, I’m hopeful that good things will be happening in short order.
As I’ve mentioned previously, we are in the midst of developing a ministry for newly married couples here at St. Charles. I’ve spoken to a handful of individuals that are interested in helping with it, there’s still a few more couples that I intend to invite to join us, and there’s some
resources available in the wider Catholic world that we’re in the process of evaluating to see if they’ll be helpful in that regard. The biggest step forward is that we’re in process of finalizing a short survey that will be sent out to all the couples that were married here in the parish in the last five years. It’s a digital survey, which is typical these days and so it’ll be easy enough to send via email to those we’re trying to reach. In addition, I do plan to make available on the website as well. The thought with that is we may have young couples that have moved into the parish as well as parishioners that have children or even grandchildren that are recently married, but not necessarily here at St. Charles. It would be good to get a wide sampling of who is out there and interested in the ministry as well as what appeals most to them. It would be silly to build a whole ministry and then have it be something that doesn’t work or is of interest to those it is intended for. And so, keep your eyes peeled for that survey in the coming weeks.
Another ministry that we’re still working on and hopeful to get up and running in the next month of so is SCYM, our youth ministry program for high school students. It’s both a beautiful and challenging ministry, but one that is so necessary. As many of you know, SCYM has seen many iterations over the years, all with the goal in mind of leading teens closer to Christ. We’ve got a good team in place that has agreed to help with SCYM and we’re in the process of planning out the meetings and events for the year ahead. While still subject to change, the current thinking is to offer both small group events, one for ladies and one for the gentlemen as well as large group gatherings where everyone will have a chance to participate and interact. The rough start for SCYM should be in October and I encourage all high school students to join us.
Peace and Goodness,
Fr. Dan
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