Our Plan, Part One

In this and the next post, I will outline the proposal for a young and marrieds ministry that we submitted to our parish priest. 

Short Term Goals

The short term goals included the following, which required little or no effort to put together or were already in place:

"Second Sundays" Lunches

Baptists are really good at potlucks. Our parish has tried this, but only ever intermittently for special occasions, never on a consistent basis.

Pat Witty, one of the bulwarks of our parish, has a saying his dad shared with him, "You've gotta keep your doors open, your lights on." If we want to build our ministry, we need to have consistent programming. People will walk through the doors -- more and more over time -- if we just stake out our place and time. 

So, Jennifer Bollich, our youth minister, gave us a time: "Second Sundays." Every "Second Sunday" of the month, we're reserving a big section of a local restaurant -- hopefully, something self-contained to help prevent the kids from wandering off. This has the added benefit of supporting our town's local businesses. 

Date Nights

The basic idea here is that we help married couples escape the helter skelter of daily life for the peace of date night. Couples drop off their kids at the church, where babysitters are provided for a nominal fee as well as youth programming -- two generations, one stone. The couples go off on their own for date night. We provide goodie bags with games and discussion questions. Then, after a romantic interlude all by themselves, the couples return for dessert at the church and a short program.  

We want to provide this on a monthly basis, as well -- to keep those doors open! The childcare idea is based on a self-funding model, so we aren't a drain on church funds. At the same time, we create a lucrative, regular job opportunity for some local teens. 

Adult Catechesis Classes

This is part of the New Evangelization called for by Pope Benedict XVI: the re-proposing of the Gospel "to those regions awaiting the first evangelization and to those regions where the roots of Christianity are deep but who have experienced a serious crisis of faith due to secularization." See Pope Benedict XVI, "Homily of First Vespers on the Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul",

There was already a good bit of groundwork established here. I've been teaching theology courses, somewhat sporadically, in our parish for some time. There will be a subsequent post to provide some background here. My classes included Hail, Holy Queen after Dr. Hahn's book of the same title, "The Pentateuch" from my class notes in Dr. Pitre's class, and Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist from Dr. Pitre's book of the same title. 

Also, Dr. Brant Pitre is already schedule to come speak at our parish, so my class on the Eucharist is designed to build excitement and momentum for his visit. Dr. Pitre will be speaking on November 3rd starting at 6:30pm at St. Mary's -- more on this later!

Pro-Life Ministry

My ever-patient and loving wife and I also started our parish's local chapter of Louisiana Right to Life. We have already put together a year's worth of programming for this, so we just rolled this into the mix. On our schedule, we've got 40 Days for Life, March for Life, and our first annual banquet and fundraiser, set for February 18, 2016 with special guest Abby Johnson. For more information about these events, check out our Pointe Coupee Right to Life Facebook page, our Twitter handle @PCRTL, and the page on this blog site.