Welcome to Saint Stephen Protomartyr Parish! May God the Father bless us as we begin this new chapter in our life together. May Jesus help us follow him more closely in the days ahead. May the Holy Spirit help us bring others to our Savior and Friend. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us. Saint John the Baptist, pray for us. Saint Stephen Protomartyr, pray for us.

I am grateful to be pastor here with you.  Let me share with you my draft vision for the parish. I’m sure it needs lots of improvement, but this is what I am thinking at the moment.

Our Mission: Love God. Love others. Make disciples. For me, mission means what comes from Jesus, what never changes. Whatever the future brings, our mission remains the same.

Our Vision: Become a growing parish of growing parish of growing disciples of Jesus Christ is South Saint Louis. For me, vision means a possible and better future that God asks us to seek. By “growing parish," I mean numerical growth: more people following Jesus by praying here. By “growing disciples," I mean growth in all those ways that are harder to measure, but that count a ton: deeper faith, more service, greater love. Our vision is about our parish being a place where people meet Jesus and grow to maturity as his disciples.

Our Strategy: In three churches, as a united parish, welcome and love people just starting and restarting faith by excellent weekend worship, and lead both old and young and in-between to take their next step as disciples of Jesus Christ in the Catholic Church. There is so much I could say about strategy, and much of it I’ve already said in past columns. For now, I’ll just repeat that for me, one united parish in three churches is a long-term strategy. I want to see it still working 20 years from now.

I love talking about all this stuff, and if you ask hard questions, they will help me think! So find me at refreshments after Mass and let me know what you think! That said, let me answer two questions which have come up.

Will we have Children’s Liturgy of the Word?  Yes!  We are working on finding leader volunteers for Children’s Liturgy of the Word and for Bible Buddies. We also need helper volunteers. Please tell Ministry Manager Debbie Gartner or me if you would like to lead or help. We hope to start these programs soon, and no later than September 10.

What’s going on with our music ministry?  Since this is a special weekend, our Seasonal Choir is leading music at 10 a.m. mass. Thank you immensely to Gary Stoff, our volunteer choir director, and to all those giving their gifts through the Seasonal Choir. If you want to join them, tell Gary or Debbie! At future 10 a.m. Masses, our interim worship leader Greg Hulub will lead music with the help of a small ensemble. We’re hoping to expand that ensemble when 10 a.m. Mass moves to IHM on October 1. Our volunteer cantors for the 7 a.m. Mass are busy in August, so we’ll delay music at the 7 am Mass for a bit.

I failed to recruit a volunteer leader for our 4 p.m. worship ensemble, so I had to shift course for the 4 p.m. Mass. During August, we’ll have music at 4 p.m. by a variety of visiting professional worship leaders. After August, I hope we can pick an interim worship leader for 4 p.m. Mass for the rest of the year, and we’ll try to build up a volunteer ensemble around that leader.

God bless you! Please pray for our parish!