St. Joseph of the Lakes

A year ago, on Pentecost weekend, Archbishop Hebda held the first Archdiocesan synod in 80 years. We experienced the years of preparation as he first held multiple listening sessions. From that work he developed an outline for the synod and he began a series of parish based catechesis sessions in which the main concepts of the synod were explored. Over Pentecost weekend last year he held the synod in which over five hundred parish representatives and other experts gathered to make final recommendations concerning the Pastoral letter that would be published following the synod. On the Feast of Christ the King Archbishop Hebda issued his Pastoral Letter and his plan for the implementation of the recommendations he received at the synod.

Part of the work of our pastoral council has been reading his letter and preparing for our parish’s implementation of the synod recommendations. In this first year we were called to name up to 12 “apostles” who would receive formation at the archdiocesan school of discipleship. After consulting the pastoral council and the parish staff I asked: Deb Dooher-Anderson, Laura Anderson, Josh Bohl, Ted Brausen, Lana Bries, Tanisha Kessel, Jane McKoskey, Steve McKoskey, Steve Million, Marly Schaffhausen, and Darson Wiege to become our apostles. They have spent seven Tuesday evenings at the school of discipleship, they have lived out a forty day challenge and this past weekend they gathered with the other parish apostles and the Archbishop as they embraced their call to this work of the synod. Next Sunday we will be formally commissioning them at the 10:00 am Mass for their work as the lead evangelizers of our parish. Their first task is to recruit 72 “disciples” this summer.

The first year implementation of the synod is the creation of small base communities (small groups) that all of us will be invited to participate in during the spring of the year. Those who accept the invitation to be disciples will be given seven weeks of training in the school of discipleship this Fall with the hope that they will be small group leaders in the Spring. I invite you to thank God with me for these Apostles who have so generously accepted the invitation to help us live out the invitation of the Archbishop to be an evangelizing Church.