Easter Thank You
Thank you again to everyone who made our Triduum and Easter liturgies successful. I heard a lot of positive feedback about how they were uplifting and prayerful (my personal experience as well).
Church Community Builder
Every parish in the Archdiocese is moving to a new database system (sometimes called “Church Community Builder” sometimes called “ParishStaq”), and we are in one of the earlier waves. The parish staff has diligently been working to upload our parish calendar into the new system, which has been a steep learning curve for all of us. What is really exciting about this system is that it gives parishioners way more control. Once we roll it out, you can keep your data up-to-date in our system, schedule your own events, and communicate within your own ministry groups. I am very excited about it, but please pray for our staff as we struggle to get it ready for roll-out.
Staff Raises
July 01 of each year begins our new parish fiscal year, which is also the time when salary adjustments happen. Because of inflation, the Archdiocese is recommending that all parish staff get, at minimum, a 3% cost-of-living increase. We should also assume that other costs will go up by a similar percentage (though some, like insurance, keep going up 15% each year!). This means that our parish giving also needs to go up by 3% to cover these increases.
Unfortunately, our parish giving is exactly even with giving at this time last year, which means we are unable to keep up with these annual cost increases. I am going to pay our bills and make sure cost-of-living increases happen (losing good staff is the best way to put a parish in a downward spiral), but I need to be honest that this has been a pretty big worry of mine for the last few months and I do not like starting to spend out of savings.
I know that the solution remains the same: (1) make sure all of our parishioners are giving based on percentage of income (so that whenever they get a raise, so does the parish) and (2) never lose sight of our mission to evangelize, primarily because the institution becomes irrelevant without its raison d’être, but also because sharing the mission among more people lightens the load on each individual. If you have better ideas, please volunteer for the Finance Council.
Fr. Moore 