St. Luke the Evangelist Church Dreams 2005

Dreams 2005

We gathered the dreams of the parish by asking everyone to complete this sentence: It would be marvelous and a great blessing for St. Luke the Evangelist Parish if someday…. Then everyone had the opportunity to indicate to which of those dream themes they had a strong commitment. (There were 7,350 strong commitments.) At an assembly we reviewed the dreams and developed some goals for the top ten dream themes. At a parish assembly in early April, 2001, we reviewed the goals and selected the top goals of the parish, our Dreams 2005 goals. We want to be able to say, by our 100th anniversary in December 2005, that:

We have vibrant, multi-faceted youth and young adult groups for ages 14-18, 18-25, and 25-40. There is important interaction among groups.

We have a strong identity as a “Church Family”; current members recognize it; new members are welcomed and soon become part of it. We recognize that we all have needs and we can meet others needs.

We are a caring community that addresses needs in our own parish (including spiritual and social programs for developmentally delayed people and support for those with mental health issues) and we have strong outreach programs (including programs for the homeless, released prisoners, and currently incarcerated people).

We are a parish that is strongly committed to social justice issues, locally, nationally, internationally.

We have an active ministry to all the children in the parish which promotes a strong sense of unity among them, including a range of religious education opportunities (for example, Summer Bible School).

We recognize the necessity of active Evangelization, especially among Catholics. We work on this through a variety of methods, including liturgy, adult faith formation (education), and other aspects of all the goals of Dreams 2005.

Some History

As we approach the 100th anniversary of our parish, we ask

What is Church?

What is Parish Family?

What could our Parish Family be?

What are your dreams for our parish? What are our Dreams 2005?

Be a part of our Planning Process.

In February of 2001, parishioners completed the following sentence:

It would be marvelous and a great blessing for our parish is someday ...

These dreams were read and sorted by the Parish Pastoral Council. Dreams with similar themes were combined. The top 25 themes of our parish's dreams are

Building renovation and maintenance
Devotional practices in Church
Enhanced sense of parish community
Evaluation of school tuition
Expansion of church facilities
Fund development to support dreams
Greater diversity of parish community
Greater vocation awareness
Improved communications
Improved participation in liturgy
Improvement of parking lot, playground, garden area
Increased aid to the poor
Increased attendance at mass
Increased attention to the bereaved, separated and divorced, etc.
Increased awareness of peace and justice issues
Increased Christian values
Increased ecumenical involvement
Increased programs for children
Increased programs for seniors
Increased programs for youth & young adults
Increased religious education for all
Parish Center, including gym
Review participation in music at Mass
Review times for Mass and other services
School enhancement, such as, science lab, cafeteria,..

In March and April of 2001 we had our goal setting assemblies.

Our Goals:

Have a strong sense of Church Family

Be a caring community

Be strongly committed to social justice

Have vibrant youth and young adult groups

Have a variety of programs for children

Be active evangelizers, especially to Catholics - with emphasis on good liturgy