By Fr. Rich, O.P.
Back in March, I shared with you the results of the Season of Stewardship Renewal program, which we first began in January. Since that point, we as a parish have been working hard to steward your gifts of prayer, service, and treasure for the good of the community.
Although we are just over halfway through the year, I wanted to take this time to share with you how your generosity has impacted your faith community:
- All flooring in the hallways on the main floor has now been replaced. Gone are the days of stained carpets! We believe this new flooring will be much more durable, look nice, and be easy to clean.
- We will be hiring a second full time staff member in the liturgy department so that we will have 2.5 staff members dedicated to worship and liturgy. The change will allow the staff to continue to enhance the Sunday liturgy as well as explore other ways for you to grow in your relationship with God. This includes the new Acts 2:42 worship night which occurs the first week of every month.
- As the offertory has increased, we have been able to increase our giving to our 14 tithing partners. In our 2018-19 fiscal year, you gave a total of $43,282.92 to these deserving organizations (see the list of those we sponsor at org/tithing).
- We are eliminating the First Offering collection envelope and are exploring additional once yearly envelopes to stop. The diocese will also be reducing their second collection envelopes in the next few years. These changes will allow you to direct all of your giving to the regular offertory and not need to “hold back” funds for specific envelopes. This will likely be a 3-4 year process, but this is the beginning!
- Religious Education has reorganized the cry room for better functionality for children and their parents. This is also an in-process project, but we hope to continue to find ways for those who use the cry room to better engage in the liturgy while caring for small children.
- This summer, Newman’s WiFi was updated, allowing you to have a faster internet connection. The students will certainly appreciate this in a few weeks! (Want to connect? The network name is PeaceBeWithYou and the password is
“bandwidthyourspirit“)
Of course, there are many behind-the-scenes improvements including staff raises, technology upgrades, and ongoing building maintenance needs. Although we can’t always see the tangible effects of these advances, they help to keep our faith community moving toward our mission of sharing the Good News on campus and in Columbia. Thank you for your commitment to your faith home. It is a pleasure to serve and be served by you.