January 08, 2025 – Pastor’s Note

Christmas Feedback

First, thank you to everyone who made our Christmas celebrations possible! On such a big day, it takes an entire team of liturgical ministers to make our churches beautiful and welcoming, and I am so thankful for all of them.

Second, I would like your feedback about the Christmas Masses. You can fill out a survey here: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/jH08B0CUqP

Two of the questions on the survey are related to my not being entirely happy with the Christmas schedule we have used the last two years. There are two problems:

1. We cannot cover it with our four assigned priests. We need a visiting priest every year to cover one of our Masses to make it work. We need to eliminate one of our Christmas Eve Masses for the schedule to be sustainable.
2. Vigil Masses really should not be before 4:00 pm. I have to get special permission from Seattle each year to offer 3:00 pm Masses. However, with the extra length of Christmas Masses and the drive times, our Masses really do need to be 3 hours apart. Meaning if I put our earliest Masses at 4:00 pm, our next layer of Masses will be at 7:00 pm, and I am worried the 7:00 pm Masses will be unpopular, putting too much space pressure on the 4:00 pm Masses.

I am not sure how to fix these issues, but I would appreciate your feedback.

Four Fundraising Letters

You may not realize it, since it is currently hard to receive every parish’s bulletin, but I have letters related to money or fundraising out at four of our locations simultaneously: Assumption, Sacred Heart, St. Joseph (Ferndale), and St. Joseph (Lynden).

• Assumption has a massively ballooned steam system repair, paired with a potential painting project: https://www.assumption.org/uploads/Fr%20Moore%20Letter/2025-11_Projects_and_Finances.pdf
• Sacred Heart has an ongoing conversation about Stations of the Cross: https://frmoore.com/2025/10/14/stations-of-the-cross-at-sacred-heart/
• St. Joseph (Ferndale) just had to undertake a major roofing project: https://frmoore.com/2025/12/18/roofing-project-at-st-joseph-ferndale/
• St. Joseph (Lynden) is spending more than it is raising and we need to right-size the budget: https://frmoore.com/2025/12/01/st-joseph-lynden-letter-on-finances/

These are, of course, in addition to trying to keep the regional and local budgets balanced. I have been a little worried about finances as of late. However, I see my job as Pastor to be transparent with parishioners about the needs of the parishes. The parishioners can decide how to respond.

Staff Changes

The beginning of a new calendar year is a convenient time to make some staff changes. The following are going into effect this month:

1. The Location Manager in Lynden (presently Lorena Duarte) is moving to 30 hours/week, down from 40.
2. We are “regionalizing” all facilities positions, resulting in a Regional Director of Facilities (presently Bert Bertschinger) and two 24 hour/week Regional Maintenance Persons. This means:
   • Brenna Sebens, previously the Facilities Manager for the entire Assumption campus, is transitioning to be the Facilities Manager only for Assumption Catholic School.
   • Dave Wolfe, previously the Facilities Manager at Sacred Heart, will now be a Regional Maintenance Person at 24 hours/week, focused mostly on south county campuses (Assumption, Sacred Heart, Viking Catholic, and Lummi).
   • Joe Reese is retiring as the Facilities Manager at St. Joseph Lynden. (See also the finances letter for Lynden above.)
   • We will presently be looking for a 24 hour/week Regional Maintenance Person to focus on the north county campuses (St. Joseph Ferndale, St. Joseph Lynden, St. Anne, and St. Peter).
   • We are actively in the process of looking for a new Regional Director of Facilities, so that Bert can retire.