What a joyous whirlwind these last three years have been as I transitioned from a parish across town to St. John! This is such a friendly and loving community, and so many people have been eager to jump in to help with our various ministries, classes and programs. Many more families and individuals have attended the various offerings—Thank You!
Here is a brief look at some of the things our Faith Formation team were involved with in the last year:
Religious Education
- Religious Education classes (CCD) on Sunday mornings for 142 students in Pre-School through 8th Grade. 6th-8th Grade used a youth ministry model called EDGE.
Preparing for the Sacraments
- Sacramental Preparation for Baptisms, Marriages, Confirmation, 1st Reconciliation and 1st Holy Eucharist. Most include a retreat day. The 2nd Grade sacraments are done in collaboration with the terrific teachers at St. John School.
- RCIA classes are open to the parish as Catholicism 101, and is held weekly all year. In RCIA we welcomed 16 people into the Church in 2018. Praise the Lord!
Growing in Community
- Weekly Adult Sessions of Bible Study, a Women’s Discipleship Group, and Adult Religious Education.
- Two sessions of Alpha, a very involved project which run for six consecutive weeks.
- Volunteer led Children’s Liturgy of the Word at some of the Sunday Masses.
- Special Events for Kids, including a Good Friday Children’s Service, an Advent mini-retreat for 6th graders, and summer Vacation Bible School.
- This year we launched Evangelizing Small Groups with training for leaders and 13 small groups which started meeting.
- Special Adult Events included Joseph and Crystal Gruber’s Lenten Series Win, Build, Send; an Annulment Workshop, and a retreat day called Disciple-Maker.
- The Fatherhood Project: Building Great Dads was launched with terrific attendance.
- Occasional meetings of Gamma Group, for those who want to go deeper into prayer and their faith journey
- Our dynamic and growing Youth Ministry with Sunday meetings, service opportunities, fun events, mission trips, Diocesan events, and national events for teens.
- Young Adult Ministry with regular meetings, bible studies and social gatherings.
None of this would be possible without a great staff, many dozens of enthusiastic volunteers, and the support of our parishioners. Thank you for investing so much time, talent, and treasure into the spiritual education and formation of our parishioners