From the Pastor.....

A few bits of info to share with you.

• HOME MASSES: Thus far, 6 households have volunteered to host a HomeMass/Potluck throughout the remainder of the year. The idea is to gather a few families in a home where I can celebrate a simple Mass followed by a potluck. This can help grow our parish and introduce people to each other. The Masses would most likely be on Mondays, Tuesdays or Fridays. I will come up with a variety of dates that families can choose from. Sign-ups will come after we have a few morevolunteers to open their homes. Masses will be casual—indoors or outdoors. If they are popular, we can continue into the Spring! Let me know if you're Interested.
• CHILD CARE: I have received questions about providing child careduring the morning Masses at Frontier. The only problem is there are no rooms available to us. So, I am continuing to explore possibilities about how we might deal with this need. Any ideas?
• RELIGIOUS EDUCATION: Without facilities we really can't startReligious Education classes. The only alternative is to do something"home-based" and that is really difficult with a potentially large number of children. So, I encourage you to sign up your children in your previous parish or another of your choice. Eventually, we will begin to explore organizing our own programs.
• BUILDING COMMITTEE: Requests for proposals from local architectsare being sent out soon. Hopefully, we will decide on an architect and get a Master Site Plan going. This will be the exciting part.
• CAPITAL CAMPAIGN: I will be asking the Finance Council to meet next month to make some decisions about starting a Capital Campaign for our parish building project. The idea is to raise enough money in PHASE 1 to get us in our own building on the property. There are several options for doing this. But, the sooner we get on site, the sooner we can schedule different Mass times, religious ed, youth ministry, etc. I will keep you informed.
• I am finding that this venture requires a great deal of patience. I am learning to take things one day at a time (very difficult). Thanks for your patience, commitment to the parish, and support!

ONWARD

What a Kick Off!!!!

I suppose it shouldn't be any surprise that our first weekend of masses coincided with the NFL's "Kick-Off" Sunday for 2008. What a turnout!!! We attended the 10:30 mass Sunday morning and, it was full. If the room holds 700-750 people, there was easily 600+ at 10:30. Having spoken to some folks who where at the 9:00 mass, my understanding is that it was equally packed. I guess it is the perfect indicator of how badly the NW has needed a Catholic Church. One Mass and we're already growing out of our facilities.
Logistically, things seemed to run pretty smoothly. There will be some wrinkles to iron out but, for the most part, things went exceptionally well.
Thanks to Fr. Perry for his vision and guidance towards the identity of this new family. Thanks to Susan and the music ministry. Thanks to Denise for leading the sacristans; Deacon David for leading the EM's & Lectors. And, thanks to ALL the men & women who helped greet, usher, provide hospitality, set-up, clean-up or serve in any capacity. We can't make this all work without your help. A special thanks to all those who traveled from Fresno to help celebrate our inaugural masses. We know you miss Fr. Perry and are thankful that you are still close enough to help us keep tabs on him! ;)
Now, we need your input. We need to know what your thoughts are now that we've celebrated a mass together. What did you like? What would you like to see different? Tell us your thoughts of our first celebrations. It is your input that can help direct this new parish. Remember, it can be anonymous if you'd prefer.
Thanks and have a great week...We can finally say, see ya' next weekend!
MGD

Down to the Wire

As we approach our first weekend of masses at SEASCC, we here on the blog are also approaching another benchmark. We are about to eclipse 3000 hits in just about 4 months time. I am a bit humbled by the power of mass communication in this format. I never expected to see such a tremendous response to it all.

Now, we are going to make another transition. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, we will be moving all of the parish information from the blog to our new website. setoncatholicchurch.org will be launching very, very soon. It will be the spot for news regarding the parish. We are wanting it to serve as an online bulletin; A place for general information and updates, links to sermons and hopfully, pictures of events and progress. It will be very simple to start and as we grow our community, will be a source of all things SEAS.

We're not done here yet but, I wanted to take a minute to thank Fr. Perry, and all who helped and contributed to this blog. I hope it was/is a place that everyone could come for info, updates and even some friendly debate.
So, thanks again to everyone in the community for your support, your prayers and your contribution to this forum.
MGD