Here is a very interesting job posting:
Langley Park Parish Partnership Coordinator
Job Description
The Langley Park Parish Partnership is comprised of the Catholic Community of Langley Park, St. Camillus, St. Elizabeth, and Our Lady of Mercy Catholic churches. We work together as a multicultural, interparish community rooted in shared faith and mutual, just relationships. Each community in this partnership aims to support one another by sharing their gifts of Faith, Spirituality and Worship as well as helping each other with earthly needs as brothers and sisters in Christ.
The Partnership Coordinator works to support the four pastors, the volunteer Partnership Steering Committee, and each parish’s Partnership Team in their efforts to strive towards the mission statement as written above. As a team, the Coordinator and these parties develop and implement goals for the Parish Partnership. The Coordinator is responsible for maintaining communication with all four church communities, assisting in planning liturgical, service, and community-building events, and matching volunteers with service opportunities. He or she helps develop relationships across the parish communities. He or she also helps identify additional needs in each community and how they can be addressed through the partnership.
Interesting that I did not see it advertized in The Catholic Standard but maybe it was in the Spanish newspaper.
Is this just simply a matter of better off parishes looking to help one another? Or is this something deeper?
Your thoughts?
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Remember, this Friday at the Fr. Rosensteel Council (7:30pm) Knights of Columbus, Randall Terry will be speaking. They are located at 9707 Rosensteel Avenue Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 (just off of Forest Glen Road -- near the Forest Glen Metro).
14 comments:
Yes, questions.
1.Do the parishoners of these parishes know that they have bundled into a group?
2. Do the parishoners actually know just where their parish donated money is going?
3.Is this a secretive move by the Archdiocese or do the parishoners know what is going on?
4. Are there other "groupings" of parishes and if so, how do we find out?
Of course the parishioners of these parishes know about this. The Catholic Community of Langley Park is an official mission of St. Camillus. They serve the needs of the thousands of poor Catholics who live in the apartment complexes of the Langley Park area. The Langley Park Partnership was formed about a year or two ago as other parishes in Montgomery County learned of the work St. Camillus has been doing to support the Langley Park mission community for a decade.
The Langley Park community, along with the larger St. Camillus community has an incredibly vibrant evangelization ministry going on in Langley Park as well as many outreach programs to ensure the wellbeing of the individual and families of that community.
The partnership with St. Elizabeth's and Our Lady of Mercy is primarily about finding ways for Catholics to help one another as brothers and sisters. The people from St. E's and Mercy come to Langley Park to help with things like the food pantry ministry encountering and serving the people.
As more and more people from the three parishes have gotten involved in the mission the need for someone to coordinate the ministry has become a necessity.
Hopefully there will be more decisions by parishes from diverse parts of our archdiocesan community who join together to serve God's people in creative ways.
I do not know anything about this, but I sense good vibes here. I bet you that this is something the parishes did on their own. I really can not see our Archdiocese doing anything to facilitate this.
To the 2nd Anon:
you seem to be much more in tune w/ this Langley Park community than many of us, including myself. I don't remember seeing anything about it in the Standard.
If you would like to provide a bit more detail about it -- the programs etc. -- I will post your response as one of my blog postings, w/o changes or deletions.
You know how to reach me.
Yes, I would like to learn more about this, too. Was any of this ever found in any of the Parish bulletins? Members of two of the mentioned parished have told me that they have never seen, nor heard about the 4 Parish Partnership.
There was a posting of this job in the Our Lady of Mercy bulletin.
However, you may be correct, this may be something that many parishioners are not aware of.
People need to ask their Pastor and Finance Council where their collection money is going. If you listen carefully, when the second collection is for your parish school, they are actually saying "schools"..It's fine if you want to give money to more than one school, but if you think your money is going only to your parish school (as it was until this year), it best to check and clarify.
I'm for this type of effort on the part of various parishes. I would not be surprised if the questions raised about this effort are being raised by Archdiocesan officials.
I believe that the Diocese is fully aware of what is going on. However, they are probably not paying for it...Mercy and St. E's are probably paying for it.
How about some transparency here. Where is parish money going and are parishoners aware of where their funds are going? There is just something about the secrecy of this that make someone wonder.... This issue of where parish money goes might be an intersting blog posting.
Not only do officials from the Archdiocese monitor this blog, it is evident that they also post on it. I say to these parishes keep up the good work.It's the Archdiocese that is not transparent with regard to school funding.
Sheesh, that sounds like a "Spirit of the 1960's" undertaking if I've ever heard of one!
Paul, the sixties were pretty good!
Sure sounds like "community organizing" to me.
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