Activity Log -Thriving Parish Committee

 

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22 September 2025

Journey of Discovery Book Club - will begin on Monday, September 22 at 7pm in the library.  The goal is the further explore and discuss the topic of the month.  The first booklet we chose is The Illumined Heart by Frederica Mathewes-Green.  Click on the link to read description and order book on Amazon.  This very readable booklet will provoke you to change perspective and it should not take you more than a couple of evenings to go through.  Join us on September 22 to discuss it!  We will continue every third Monday of the month with different readings.

21 September 2025

On the Sunday after the Elevation of the Cross, Fr. Costin's sermon to the children included instruction on praying before the iconostasis Icon of Christ and the Icon of the Theotokos. He encouraged the children to take their parents to the iconostasis with their prayer cards to pray before they sit down for the service. View photo here...

8 September 2025

The first meeting of Journey of Discovery was held today. - View monthly focus topics here... 

Book recommended for discussion in September- Amazon link: The Illumined Heart: Capture the Vibrant Faith of Ancient Christians. 

1 September 2025

As most of you know, we have spent many hours from the beginning of the year brainstorming a better and more systematic approach to all of our parish processes with the ultimate goal of profound renewal and deep engagement for all of you. We have considered financial, social and outreach aspects, but at the very center we placed the concept of spiritual engagement - a better, practical understanding of what the Church is, bringing all of us closer to God and
actively participating in worship.

We are inviting you to a ten month journey of discovery organized around ten topics that you can see on our website. Each month will begin with an open discussion of the topic on the first Monday evening, where we explore together the best approach that we will endeavor to put in practice the rest of the month. 

Thriving Parish Initiative - Journey of Discovery - View monthly focus topics here... 

 

7 June 2025

Committee Action:

Our team of 15 parishioners and Fr. Costin devoted hundreds, if not thousands, of hours over many months to diligently understand our Parish strengths, our weaknesses, the opportunities before us and obstacles, or threats, that we need to avoid.

We reached out to our stewards through personal conversations, our church bulletin, our church Beacon, our committee website, and Fr. Costin’s Sunday announcements.  We reached out to those that voiced strong positive and negative opinions in the November 2024 General Assembly to capture a broad, representative and inclusive view of our community.   We worked diligently to collect comments from across of our parish.

We passionately discussed all inputs we collected and stored our work product on a church shared drive which is transparently available to all stewards.

Our deliberations led to a consensus vision and view of the future of our parish, to include stewardship, ministries, outreach, finances, and an execution roadmap to achieve these goals.  Our findings and recommendations were reported and strongly endorsed in the 4 May 2025 Spring General Assembly.

Action Plan:

Our committee has developed three overarching action items to implement over the next twenty-four months, with a leadership team for each element, that will put us on a path to a thriving parish.

Next Steps:

The next step is now up to all of us to work together to implement this plan.  Please join us on one or more of these efforts or contact any member of the Committee to volunteer.

We plan to meet on 28 June as a full committee to review our immediate plans.  The three Action Item Teams will meet over the summer on their tempo to refine their plans and we will launch our year end efforts on 13 September with a full committee meeting.

Please stay tuned to the church calendar and join us on this important work as we work to strengthen the future of our parish.

 

Please reach out to Zach or Jim if you have thoughts you would like to share and stay tuned for more from this committee or send email to zlemnios@gmail.com .