After months of analysis and conversations, the time to shape our preferred plan for our ACC’s future begins in earnest. The Come to the Water ACC “All Things New” committee, including Father Matthew Kuhn, will fine-tune our plan moving forward within the guiding principles and guidelines presented to us by Bishop Patrick Neary and the Diocese.
Most ACCs, including ours, have had three to four Deanery Meetings, facilitated by Diocese Planning Leadership. We have been blessed by the leadership of Kristi Bivens (St. Cloud Diocese’s Director for Lay Leadership Formation), Christine Pinto (St. Cloud Diocese’s Director for Faith Formation, and Brenda Kresky (St Cloud Diocese’s Director of the Planning Office). In those meetings we have walked through the initial guide to the planning process for All Things New. We were introduced to our current reality within the Diocese. We were introduced to our guiding principles, and Brenda Kresky came to each of our three parishes in July for public discussions. We opened up the opportunity to have our parishioners submit their ideas and feedback through an online survey, as well as at those public meetings.
All of this leads us into the next ACC planning meeting (September 5th) where we will work on our plan and goals and our next Southwest Deanery meeting (September 20) where we will receive our next planning guide books from the Diocese. Ideas and concerns will start to go from pencil to ink (so-to-speak). There is still time for your respectful and constructive ideas and concerns to help shape the process, but we are seeking to complete our assigned task as soon as possible. This will allow the Bishop and the Diocese Leadership to review it in time to convey if our plan meets their requirements, as well as sustains and fulfills the parish and spiritual lives of the Catholics within our ACC.
Our ACC All Things New committee is made up of people from each parish. Unfortunately, we have lost two members during the process, Nate Hilmer (St. Nick’s) and now Luke VanOverbeke (St. Mary’s) because of new jobs out of the area. Nate has been replaced by Ellen Ponicki.
The members of the committee include:
Fr. Matthew Kuhn, Fr. Dan Ruprecht, Todd Wentworth (ACC Business Administrator), Joe Korkowski (ACC Communications Coordinator), Darcie Boogaard (ICC), Mike Helwig (ICC), Sharon Marthaler (ICC & SN), Francie Peterson (StM), Josh Waltzing (StM), Tonya Beulke (SN) and Ellen Ponicki (SN).
Although there are several pages of notes containing your comments and suggestions from the public discussions that we have on record, the following are the respectful and constructive comments submitted online as part of our parish surveys.