Three years ago, the council members, along with Fr. Jim, (and later, Fr. Mike) began working on a long range, strategic planning process called Vision 2000. All 212 parishes in the archdiocese were asked to participate in this program by challenging themselves to stretch and grow beyond their past accomplishments.

We studied their suggested ideas and goals and then set our own goals for St. Mary. We prioritized them, gave them target dates and turned them over to specific individuals or committees to accomplish in the areas of community, religious education, leadership and families. I want to highlight some of those goals for you.

1. We wanted to provide a more dynamic religious education program for our children. We wanted to invite parents to take a role in the sacramental preparation of their children and to offer the opportunity of family catechesis. Attendance in our program is up by 25%. We have increased the number of catechists to 44 people. The Vacation Bible School program has grown from 30 kids to 170 in just 3 years.
2. We wanted to insure adult education would continue after the Renew program ended. The parish mission last fall, Fr. Mikes Bible study sessions, Kraigs formation of prayer groups and Bible study are examples of adult education. The next two Wednesday evenings there will be a two-part presentation on Eucharist. These types of offerings will continue as often as possible.

3. We wanted to communicate in a variety of ways to the parish and the community. We set up a parish website and revamped the parish newsletter which now appears as an insert on a quarterly basis in the bulletin. We have begun to publicize our activities to the rest of the surrounding community in hopes that they might become interested in our parish and may want to come see what we are all about.

4. One of the more important things we do as a parish is to form a social community. We felt it important to know who we are worshiping with each week so we decided it was time to update our pictorial directory. We restarted the parish life committee to provide all parishioners with a way to socialize with each other and with our own families. Our first event was Pizza and a Movie afternoon and we had a great turnout. Our second event will be a late afternoon/ early evening event on the Rail Trail in June.

5. We wanted to increase the amount of food we donate to the food bank each month by 50%. Im sure you have noticed we have done that most months. We also wanted to continue with special outreach projects such as the Fill the Ark project last Lent.

6. We wanted to encourage our young people to participate in the Eucharistic celebration and not just be spectators. We decided to form a childrens choir and fortunately at the same time we were discussing this a volunteer came forward and offered to direct a childrens choir. We continue to urge our high school youth and Wartburg students to participate by serving in one of our many ministries.

Part of our mission statement says that we are here to serve each other. That is why we have increased our ministries to include sacristans, greeters and more Eucharistic ministers, (not merely to get communion done faster) but to offer more people the chance to serve their fellow parishioners.

Because of these increased ministries, we decided to add the paid position of Liturgist/Musician to our staff for two reasons.
The most important thing we do together each week is to come and worship as a community. We want to keep this worship time enriching, inviting, open to participation and something we look forward to each week. We have had an increase in the number of people who, for whatever reason, had let their faith lapse, they have been returning to church, and returning here because they feel the warmth and welcome at St. Marys services. Coordinating all the growing ministries and all the music groups requires far more time than a volunteer can offer to do and do well. The Liturgist/Musician also provides all the music for the sacramentals and all other parish programs and events throughout the year, including childrens programs and Masses.

The second reason for the position, again, we were visioning ahead to our future, is to assist the pastor in planning Sunday services and all special services once he is no longer here on a full time basis.

This brought us to the subject of Stewardship. We are all called to share our time, talent and treasures with each other. As time goes on and the number of priests continues to dwindle, parishes throughout the world will become more and more dependant on lay, professional staff to keep our parishes running. Years ago, there would be two, three and sometimes four priests to a parish to do all of this work. Now, one priest can expect to serve two, three, four and more parishes at a time. It will be impossible for them to keep their health and do all the work involved in each of the parishes they serve. As we do turn to professionals, we have to keep in mind that they must be paid a just salary and benefits. They have to earn a decent living to support themselves and their families. This is the future of the Catholic Church. Keeping this in mind, one of parish councils goals is to form a Stewardship Committee to see how we will meet this financial challenge. You will be hearing more about that in the months to come.

At the same time Fr. Jim and parish council started working on Vision 2000, they also started examining our problems with inadequate space in our buildings. Our Religious education program has outgrown the spaces provided. In some rooms in the Drexler Annex, students literally sit shoulder to shoulder to fit everyone in the tiny rooms. Marian Hall can only fit a fraction of our parishioners at one time for an event. Our restroom facilities are completely inadequate for our needs and are not handicapped accessible. Which means some people have not been able to attend some church functions. In addition, our sanctuary area is not handicap accessible for those who may wish to come up here and serve their fellow parishioners as lectors, Eucharistic ministers or altar servers. All parish employees now have offices next door in the parish office center. Although no one complains, quarters are fairly cramped for 9 people to be able to do their jobs without getting in each others way. And it is difficult for Fr. Mike to find a private area to do any counseling.

In October of this year, St. Mary Parish will be 146 years old. This is the third building our parishioners have worshiped in. Just as our parish ancestors planned ahead for their future worship spaces, so we too must plan ahead.

We average over a thousand people at the three Masses each weekend. We are nearing capacity. (If you ever attend the 10 Mass you know we are past capacity almost every week.) At our current rate of growth, in a few years we will be past capacity at the other two Masses as well. But we cant just look at normal growth.

We have to look at the number of priests that will be active in this archdiocese in the near future. For every 3 priests that retire only one is being ordained. This has been the steady downward trend for several years now and is not expected to change. By the year 2010 (probably more like 2008) there will be approximately 75 priests to serve over 200 parishes. This does not take into account priests who become too ill to continue to minister or priests that may die suddenly from illness or accident. (Last year, 4 priests died, none of which were anticipated.) Unfortunately, we lost a priest just last weekend because of admitted abuse. We all hope and pray, for many reasons, that this does not happen again. But I fear we have to anticipate other priests being forced to leave. This puts additional burdens, emotionally and physically on the priests we have left.

Fr. Mike has already been informed he will be expected to help those priests who have multiple parishes by saying some weekend Masses for them. He has not been given a timeline, but considering some of the recent events and major illnesses of some priests this will probably be sooner than we think. Once this happens, we will be cut back to two Masses a weekend. How will we fit more than 500 people at each Mass in a church that sits only 350? When one-third of those parishioners who attend Mass each weekend can no longer fit in this church, we cease to properly serve the people of this parish.

I recently e-mailed Msgr. Dean Walz who is the Vicar for this area of the archdiocese with a few questions. Here is a part of his response. "With over 200 parishes, many of them larger than Waverly, the handwriting is on the wall. We simply have to have larger churches with fewer Masses." He then added, "you cannot count on always having a priest who will serve the people of Waverly only. Also, you have to ask yourselves whether the facilities you have are really adequate to meet the needs of a growing Catholic population in your area. We have to look to the future and provide for it."

The Building Committee and Parish Council have worked diligently the past two years looking at what needs to be done to prepare for the future of our parish. I admire those in both groups who have been in this parish their entire lives or for most of their adult lives. This has been a very painful process for them. But they have set aside their personal desires for the greater needs of the parish. Growth can be a painful and frightening process but eventually it can become a grace-filled and rewarding one.

As leaders of the parish, we would be grossly negligent if we did not confront these truths that are staring us in the face and take steps to insure our continued growth and the very future of our parish. Therefore, the parish council recently voted to build on the property John & Lelah Anhalt graciously donated. The architects we have worked with for the past 18 months will begin working on a master plan for our new parish center and a fundraising campaign is anticipated to start this fall.

We are asking everyone to make this leap of faith with us. We are asking for your spiritual, emotional and eventually your financial support. We are, above all else, a faith community and as a community we all share in this together.

I would like to leave you with these words of Pope John Paul II: "The parish is not principally a structure, a territory, a building. The parish is first of all a community of the faithfulthat is the task of the parish today; to be a community, to rediscover itself as community"