Parish Pastoral and Finance Council Minutes
Tuesday, August 26, 2025
In Attendance: From Parish Council:
Father Showreddy, Ja-Deen Johnson, Theresa Roberts, Maria Hartman, Mark Rund, Father Eustace, Amberlie O’Toole, Steve Looney
The meeting was called to order.
Father Showreddy opened the meeting with scripture and prayer.
A motion was made to approve July Council minutes. Minutes were seconded and were approved.
Pastor’s Report:
Father Showreddy shared a follow-up regarding adding a Sunday evening Mass. This had been discussed at the prior meeting. This isn’t an option at this time since the church is reserved for the Chin community Sunday evenings.
Father announced confessions are being shifted to Thursday from Friday starting the first week of September because of a new first Friday healing service being added. The healing service will take place after the first Friday Mass of the month.
Father noted that he discussed with Principal Ryan Schnarr about our priests talking to a class once a month about a certain topic (vocations, etc.)
Father Showreddy shared that our priests plan to visit the sick (spending time talking with them, offering anointing of the sick and confession) These might be people that are taken communion by EMHC. The priests continue to offer Mass at Majestic and University nursing home.
Principal Report: Not in attendance
Ryan shared with the council via email that he is healing from his surgery following breaking his arm. He also noted his appreciation for the support and prayers.
School is back in session. The theme this year is “Be Bold.”
We have a new assistant principal and 5 new teachers, 3 of whom are former St. Barnabas students. All vacancies are filled.
The school is in its 3rd year partnership with Tools for Success (Curriculum alignment, vertical alignment, creating highly rigorous quarterly assessments, differentiated instruction, and high abilities) The first quarter STEM day will be September 26th. The school will have a St. Michael/Archangels Mass on September 29th. Walk-a-thon will be October 3rd and Grandparents Day will be November 14th.
Ryan also provided a chart that showed enrollment. The biggest difference noted was the preschool classes. Only 17 PreK this year compared to 25 last year. The biggest peak for PreK was in 2016 when there were 50. Kindergarten has 36 this year compared to 56 last year.
Financial and Operational Report: Shared by Ja-Deen
Finance:
Our budget was $2.35 million. We were down a little over $100,000 on tithing.
July - we were at $155,000 but were budgeted for $150,000.
We did drop the budgeted amount for tithing to $2 million this coming year.
Choice Scholarships: Last year 475 students were on a Choice scholarship.
• For the current year so far, 394 students have applied. The deadline is this coming Friday. We have 15 students that have not applied that qualify.
• 17 students have taken the SGO for PreK.
• 22 students applied for Warrior grants. These grants are for students who don’t qualify for Choice and that are parishioners.
$2.3 million is expected for Choice dollars, which is up about one half of a million dollars from last year. The Department of Education is submitting it in 4 lump sums instead of 3. 25% in September, 25% in October, 40% in February, and the remaining catch-up in May.
Operations:
• Bridgett Mason has been hired as the new Coordinator of Children’s Faith Formation.
• Tanya Pongracz is taking over Adult Faith Formation (OCIA).
• Meg Horcher is retiring this year and Kristen Hammerschmitt will be replacing her.
• There has not been a lot of success right now in recruiting someone for director of music. Ja-Deen has only received 2 resumes. The position is posted nationally.
Youth Ministry Update: Shared by Ja-Deen
• The Fall kickoff will be September 7th. YM will then hold sessions for middle schoolers on Sundays from 4-6 PM, and for High schoolers from 7-9 pm
• Tina Schnarr, Youth Minister, is working with the South Deanery on a Youth ministry event. On October 18th, St. Barnabas will host a south deanery 7th and 8th grade dance.
• Tina is planning a fundraiser for NCYC -A trivia night parish event.
For NCYC (National Catholic Youth Conference) 17 teens are signed up. We still need one adult male chaperone.
• Tina would also like to have 10-12 adults ideally for a core team that would meet once a month.
• Confirmation has been moved to 9th grade. Candidates will meet two times a month.
Their confirmation will be in June. Confirmation group leaders will be needed.
• Some of Tina’s thoughts for Young adult ministry - drinking with the saints which would take a deep dive into the lives of the saints; praise and worship holy hour;
Faith Formation Update: Maria shared that they met on August 12th with 6 people in attendance. Bridgett was there too. They discussed upcoming programs, the grandparent workshop, 60th anniversary (a special prayer was created for this celebration), YM things, OCIA (Tanya is working on that); Maria mentioned that they need more non-staff on the commission, there are only 2 non-staff on the commission.
Parish engagement ideas: Father Showreddy has asked people to be thinking of how to actively engage parishioners and share ideas
.
Theresa shared that she went to the listening sessions that Father Jim held for parishioners in preparation for the 60th Anniversary Mass; her takeaways were it gave people a platform to reminisce and share over the years how they had felt supported in prayer; radical hospitality; and the theme of community. She said listening sessions would be good to hold so parishioners can share their hearts’ desires.
Theresa suggested that all ministries/commissions/parish council start their meetings with the Parish Mission Statement. It helps remind people what we are about, our parish goals and objectives. When decisions are made, we can ask ourselves, “What does this have to do with making disciples?”
Also helpful for engagement, we discussed personally inviting someone, creating a welcoming environment, buddy families for new parish families, and going out of our way to connect with others.
Theresa also showed the council a book that discusses meeting people where they are. “Forming Intentional Disciples”, by Sherry Wadell. She said this would be a good resource for parish staff, commissions, etc. It covers different stages of where people are in their faith, identifying it, and how to engage them according to that stage, whether they are curious, open, seeking, etc.
Men’s Club:
March Mania - March 14th will be their annual fundraiser.
Talk of adding a new decal to the athletic field scoreboard.
Father Showreddy closed the meeting leading us in prayer.
The next Parish Council Meeting will be September 23rd at 6:30 pm in the Hope Center.
