Our Lady of the Woods Church
Parish Meetings of Saturday, January 16 & Monday, January 18, 2010 – Minutes
Present on Jan 16: Fr. Don Dilg, Ed Gaffney, Vince Colarelli, Nick Colarelli, and 51 members of parish community.
Present on Jan 18: Fr. Don Dilg, Ed Gaffney, Vince Colarelli, Nick Colarelli, and 70 members of parish community.
Meeting opened by Fr. Don with prayer and discussion on discernment.
Discernment is the focus of this meeting.
- There is a distinction between discernment and decision making:
- Discernment is seeing what is there; Decision-making is choosing what to do about what is there.
- There is a faith component to discernment.
- Discernment is enlightened by grace. The Holy Spirit is necessary in the process.
- God is revealed through human living through human experience through prayer… this is what Incarnation means. Faith and prayer brings to light the presence of God in all human experience.
- Epiphany … Manifestation or “bringing to light”. Helping see lighting the way. That is what discernment is about.
- THEN we can make genuine and informed decisions.
God is acting in this process now. Now we have a second chance to take the time we need to see what is really then in God’s plan. The results of the capital campaign may be a blatant sign from God. A number of new things have come to light. The parish discernment over the last six years is that we need to remain here … in the center of town.
However, what has also come to light is that we have not been taking good care of our current facility. Vince Colarelli, a contractor, who has been working with parish for two years now, did an extensive property condition report – looking at building code, esthetics, repair/maintenance, energy efficiency, and health and safety issues.
Fr. Don has made the executive decision to take care of the health and safety issues … major ones are parking lot, fire alarms, electrical. … and other items… list available. About 76 to 100 K will be spent on these. Finance council and bishop have approved these expenditures.
Vince Colarelli
- Context with historical perspective
- Extensive design exercise … seven different options … most costly – 6 to 9 mil.
- Alternatives … renovations and additions to this building – 4 to 6 mil.
- Another series of alternatives … renovations to this building with shell addition. The core and shell would cost one to two million.
- What condition this building is in … discovered 600K improvements needed.
- What we know now that needs repaired and renovated for health and safety. $76 thousand of “needs” to do now.
- Parking lot requires digging up and putting in drainage to allow better drainage of melted snow, which turns into extensive ice sheets covering the north parking lot.
Since then … a new vision emerged … having church become part of central plaza in middle of Woodland Station as a fabric of downtown … very public venue. It would give the church prominence, and possibly a way to do social ministry and outreach from a facility standpoint. This is just a vision at this point. Concerns expressed about lack of progress in DDA’s plans for Woodland Station. There has been a fundamental change in the organization that is responsible for developing that property.
Other than the necessary repairs to the existing facility – which, as said above, will be done – everything else needs to be considered in the discernment process. We will not rush into a decision-making mode. We will depend on the discernment process to find the information we need.
Ed Gaffney … Director of Pastoral Ministry and Director of Mission Effectiveness of Diocese of Colorado Springs.
Nick Colarelli … Doctorate in Organization Psychology with extensive experience in religious environment and thirty years of experience in planning.
Nick Colarelli … What is the discernment process? How is it effective?
This church, built in 1955, was a decision that affects us. Did they make a good decision? Consensus is yes.
Faith component: there will be people here in 60 years. We have to believe that the decisions we make will be good for them and for the civic community the church is part. We believe that God will be present in the decision.
Any decision we make will affect the future … 50 years from now and out. What we are trying to get to is essentially that discernment is a form of decision-making that religious groups use. Long-standing decisions are at stake. We really have to give God a chance to influence those decisions.
How do we make bad decisions: not enough information … haste … my sinfulness … emotions … already married to outcome…. Money, lack of … not taking all information into account … not really thinking it through… impatience … not looking at all the options … talking and not listening … not working together… being impulsive.
The Discernment Process
- Time period … 60 to 90 days. (Stretching it out longer means the data gets ‘cold’)
- Process is to be clean and holistic.
- Give everybody an opportunity to participate.
- Transparent process.
- We are Teller County Catholic Community trying to decide what the physical structure of OLW will look like.
- What are the areas of information we need?
How do we do it?
Four phases of discernment.
- Gather people who will collect and learn everything we can possible learn about us, our civic community, what we currently have, what others have suggested we might have. Structures, costs… We as a Catholic community have an enduring long-term responsibility to the rest of this community and to this parish. God has entrusted his mission to us… in Woodland Park. We play a big part in making the Kingdom of God happen in WP. We affect our community. How do we enable people to feel the presence of God through us?
- These groups will gather to compare and report. Putting all the information together. They will come up with options. New options may emerge through the gathering.
- The options will be presented to entire parish. Through all-parish meetings, parishioners will look at pros and cons, positives and negatives of all options. The entire parish will have a chance to provide feedback.
- All information will then go back to original group who will make decisions. The decisions will be brought to the pastor for discussion and final approval… as well as to the Bishop.
The process is charged with trying to gather ALL information available. Give god many different ways to speak to us and to shape us. Focusing on our Mission throughout process.
Forming committees …. Necessary Considerations
- Indifference … members of these committees need to be indifferent to the outcome of the process.
- Ask myself … am I so married or committed to what I want… that I cannot be open to different possibilities. Is my mind made up? Then I should not be in a committee.
- There is room for everybody … at least five to six people in each group.
- Those not on committees will be valuable in third stage that evaluates and critiques all options.
- Participation is open to all parishioners in Teller County … Data will be collected from all of Teller County.
Concerns
What is going to happen when new pastor comes in July? What has happened to all the previous discernment? What about the funds available? This feels like starting over again. What is going to be different this time? What are the financial considerations? Is the Bishop involved? Past feelings are strong. Are we praying enough? Are we praying together? Are we looking for God’s will? How will we know God’s will? How about the money? Will there be training for the groups in terms of interaction and collaboration? There are too many unknowns.
ALL these issues … and more … will be addressed by the committees in the Discernment Process.
It will cost us a lot … but not in money. We need to get involved in the data gathering.
God’s will is not a trick; he does not want us to try to read his mind; many factors are involved; God is revealed in people, in information, in events, in prayer. We need to see all of that and see how it fits together. Human experience reveals the presence of God.
Specifics of the Process … Ed Gaffney
Information gathering by four subcommittees … maybe a fifth. Ed Gaffney explained each item in the handout in detail, entertaining questions and comments along the way. Handout explains details and guidelines for the committees’ work … see handout added at end of these minutes.
Committees are:
- Civic Community
- Woodland Station
- Parish and Diocese
- Current Location
- Prayer Group
Questions not addressed on the handout can be added… by anyone. Contacts will be provided.
PRAYER is a primary function of this process … everyone needs to commit to prayer for the future of this church … for the new pastor … for the discernment process … for those on the committees … for the needs of the parish.
Finally, we are about information gathering not advocating for a particular decision or decisions.
We will be asking people to sign up now … this shows your interest in being part of the process. There will be a meeting on January 30 for those who sign up for these committees. At this meeting, Ed and Nick will help train the committees on how to go about gathering the information needed.
COMMITTEE SIGN-UPS … now … these people will meet on Saturday, January 30, 2010 from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m.
THOSE NOT PRESENT AT THE MEETINGS ARE ENCOURAGED TO CONSIDER SUBMITTING THEIR NAMES FOR THESE COMMITTEES. Call the office at 687-9345.
(See below committee descriptions and functions)
Data Available:
- Percept (demographics)
- Parish Pastoral Plan (parish and community data)
- Current ministry, financial, and facility data (from the parish)
- Woodland Park data (Woodland Station proposal)
- Current location data (from Colarelli Construction)
Sub-Committees
1. Civic Community
- Demographics
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- % of Catholics
- % of other faiths
- % un-churched
- Trends
- Challenges that civic community faces
- Expectations of civic community for OL W
- Civic community’s perceptions of OLW’s contributions to the community
- Relationships and partnerships: current and to be developed
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- Include ecumenical, business, educational, governmental, etc.
- What continue to be the unknown and risks about the community?
- Other areas needing to be explored
2. Woodland Station
- What is the vision?
- What is being proposed?
- What is NOT being proposed?
- How does this affect our mission as Church? (change it, benefit it, limit it)
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- How would this affect our presence and impact in the community?
- How would this affect our ministries?
- What continue to be the unknowns and risks about Woodland Station?
- What are other advantages and disadvantages of the proposal?
- What are the costs (money and otherwise) to the parish community associated with this proposal?
- How much capability do we have in this proposal to determine the configuration of the facility within the square?
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- Specific location
- Size of the Church
- Space for rectory, meeting space, classrooms, etc.
- What questions have we not been able to answer?
3. Parish and Diocese
- History of the parish
- Demographics and population trends
- Level of involvement/commitment of parishioners
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- Number registered
- Number active
- Number inactive
- Number alienated
- Attitudes of parishioners toward
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- growth
- change
- inclusion of others in the community
- Financial picture
- Current ministries
- Strengths and weaknesses
- Current level of engagement with the community
- Current mission and goals of the parish
- Relationship to the Diocese … (especially the possibility of getting new pastor involved in the parish as early as possible.)
- Awareness of the impact of the Diocese on the parish
4. Current Location
- What is our current vision?
- To what extent does the current location strengthen and support our presence to the community and our ministry to the community?
- How does it limit our presence to the community and our ministry to the community?
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- Needs for program (and other) space
- Potential use of the current location in the future
- What has been proposed
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- In terms of core and shell?
- In terms of a new building?
- What are the risks involved?
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- Core and shell
- A new building
- Doing nothing
- What are the costs of:
-
- Remaining on the current location with current buildings
- Building core and shell
- Building a new building on the same site
- What continue to be the unknowns and risks about staying in the current location?
January 24th, 2010 | Tags: 16, 18, building, colarelli, committee, discernment, Fr. Don, meeting, minutes, parish | Category: Announcements, Building Plans | Leave a comment
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