Merger Recommendations-August 29, 2010

Prayer for our Successful Parish Merger

Book of Jeremiah

"The Lord says

I alone know the plans I have for you

Plans to prosper you not, harm you,

plans to bring about the future you hope for.

Then you will call to me.

You will come and pray to me, and I will answer you.

You will seek me with all your heart and you will find me.

Amen.

 

Recommendation for Merger of the St. James and St. Joseph Parishes

 to Bishop Morlino on August 29, 2010

Recommendation: We will maintain both our St. Joseph and our St. James sites when we officially merge to be the Good Shepherd Parish.  Our St. James School will continue at its present site.  There will be no new construction or major remodeling at this time except for meeting accessibility codes that they are required by the Diocese or the City of Madison (making things handicap accessible).  However, we recommend the hiring of additional staff as needed, particularly, a business manager and a youth minister/DRE.

Rationale:

 It will be important for the success of our new parish that all of our parishioners at our St. Joseph site and our St. James site look to our Good Shepherd as their parish leaving their loyalties to one site behind.  Our commitment to Our Good Shepherd Parish is critical to eliminate any sense of competition that we have experienced.  Additionally, we need to strengthen the finances of our new parish to hire two people and to strengthen our ministry for all of our parishioners.

  1. To enable us to focus on our ministry to all of parishioners and the communities we serve, we want to maintain both worship sites.    This enables us to honor the heritage and loyalties of our parishioners at both our St. Joseph and our St. James site as well as focus on the heart of our parish, developing quality ministries.
  2. We believe that the work of the Facilities Evaluation Committee (FEC) identified beautiful facilities for our parish but for the foreseeable future our finances tell us that we will not do any structural changes.  The only exception will be updating the buildings to meet accessibility codes if we are required to complete them.
  3. Keeping both sites operational will require more effort for both the pastoral and office staff.  However, we feel the benefit to build a strong new parish will be worth the effort.

Implementation Specifics:

  1. We will form an Evangelization Committee whose primary focus is to bring those parishioners who are non-attending back to our liturgies and to invite and add new members to our registry .
  2. We will renew the stewardship program with an appeal for our regular giving to meet the needs of increased staffing the ministries of our new parish and  along with creative strategies to help us meet all of our financial commitments.
  3. We will hire a Business Manager.
  4. We will hire a Youth Manager/DRE.
  5. We will complete the legal and canonical (church law) merger of the parish.
  6. We will plan a liturgy to celebrate the forming of our new parish, The Good Shepherd Parish, and to honor the history and heritage of all of our parishioners.
  7. Over the next year, every effort will be made to merge functions and committees to foster a Good Shepherd focus.
  8. We will continue to maintain both building sites as needed.
  9. We recommend that the DRE position be added to the Youth Ministry position to be one full time position.  This will enable a full time person Pastoral Associate to do ministry for our new Good Shepherd Parish.
  10. We will be transferring responsibility within our staff.
  11. Denise Barajas will be responsible for the Latino catechesis.
  12. Sr. Zita will be the pastoral associate