Category: Renew My Church

Thank you to all who attended the first Parish Session for Renew My Church, held in August, 2019. We hope you will help spread the word about this important work with our neighbors to plan for the future of our parish. Thank you also to Fr. Jim, Mrs. Kelly, Christina Tomaso, Guillermo Tenorio, Rachel Hohner, Loretta Namovic and Martha Lacunza from our parish’s Grouping Feedback and Discernment Team for planning and leading these meetings, and to the Kolke, Godinez, and Hohner families who helped with logistics.

Even if you were unable to attend, we encourage you to pray for and keep informed about the Renew My Church process. Please download and review the materials and handouts below. The feedback from parishioners and questions/answers gathered at the meeting have not been added but will be posted soon.  

Session in English Thursday, August 22 7 p.m., Parish Center		Sesión en español Domingo, 25 Agosto 1:30 p.m., sótano de la iglesia
Agenda		Agenda
Prayer of St. Oscar Romero		Oración de S. Oscar Romero
Presentation Slides		Diapositivas de la Presentación
Video during the Presentation		Video durante de la Presentación
Process Overview		Resumen del Proceso
Data Dashboard		Tablero Estadístico
Mission and Ministries		Mision y Ministerios
Key Data, 2018-2019		Datos Claves, 2018-2019
Questions/answers and feedback from the meeting will be posted here soon.		Pronto las preguntas/respuestas y la retroalimentación serán compartido aquí.

Work continues among the four parishes in our Renew My Church Grouping — Queen of Angels, St. Matthias, Transfiguration of our Lord and St. Hilary.

On Tuesday, August 6, the Grouping Feedback and Discernment Team (GFDT) met to evaluate church and school data from the four parishes of our grouping and to discern our own parishes’ strengths and challenges. The lists specific to Queen of Angels discerned by our team members were as follows:

Our Strengths:

• Sacramental life — many people being served through receiving sacraments; staff welcomes and accommodates
• Enrollment — strong numbers in both our Catholic School and Religious Education program; lots of kids in the neighborhood
• Diversity — able to meet different learning needs in the school; serving people of different ethnicities and in two languages in the parish
• Lack of debt — savings in the bank; paid off archdiocesan debt a few years ago
• Community-building — especially among families with children in our school

Our Challenges:

• Engagement of youth & young adults — so many youth drift after Confirmation; neighborhood attracts many young adults but very few are connected to the Church
• Exodus to suburbs — families moving out of the neighborhood due to property taxes, high rents, local crime
• Isolation — hard to get to know others in the parish if you don’t have kids and aren’t in a ministry group
• Integration of language groups — limited contact between English-speaking and Spanish-speaking persons; feeling of divided parish

The entire team then identified common threads present across the parishes and schools, to see where we stand as a grouping and to gain a broader sense of the realities of the Lincoln Square community.

This past week, parishioners were invited to attend our first Parish Sessions on Renew My Church, in English on Thursday, August 22 and in Spanish on Sunday, August 25. A further report on these parish-wide meetings will appear in a future post.

Over the next few weeks, our team will be prayerfully considering a set of possibilities that show potential scenarios of how parishes and schools in our grouping could be structured in the future. The scenarios are conversation-starters only at this point. No decisions have been made. As this conversation continues, your Grouping Feedback & Discernment team has also been invited to consider alternative scenarios they may discern.

Let us hold each other and the other parish and school communities in our grouping in prayer. This is important work as we rededicate ourselves to our faith in Jesus Christ and plan for our future.

• St. Matthias (corrected link!)
• Queen of Angels (interactive album coming soon!)
  • Handout of Data and Mission Information
• Transfiguration
• St. Hilary (interactive album coming soon!)

On Wednesday, July 17, and Thursday, July 25, the Grouping Feedback and Discernment Team (GFDT) toured each of the four parishes in our Renew My Church grouping.  Please click any of the links above to share in our summertime discoveries!

Renueva Mi Iglesia – Descubrimientos en el Verano
El miércoles, 17 de julio, y el jueves, 25 de julio, el Equipo  de la Agrupación para Retroalimentación y Discernimiento (GFDT, de las letras en inglés) recorrió cada una de las cuatro parroquias de nuestra agrupación en Renueva Mi Iglesia.  ¡Por favor, haga clic en cualquier de las enlaces y eche un vistazo!

The Queen of Angels Grouping Team attended the Grouping Team Retreat, held at St. Domitilla Church in Hillside, on Saturday, June 22, 2019, for members of Grouping Feedback and Discernment Teams (GFDTs) from parishes being activated in Wave 3 of the Renew My Church process. Our own GFDT members were invited to represent Queen of Angels, along with members of the GFDTs from St. Matthias, St. Hilary, Transfiguration of Our Lord and other parishes from across the archdiocese who are involved in the same stage of the Renew My Church process.

Working Lunch Questions

Retreat Outline

Retreat Music

Report from the Conversation with Cardinal Cupich, held at St. Domitilla Church in Hillside, on Saturday, June 1, 2019, for members of Grouping Feedback and Discernment Teams (GFDTs) from parishes being activated in Wave 3 of the Renew My Church process. Our own GFDT members Loretta Namovic and Rachel Hohner represented Queen of Angels, along with members of the GFDTs from St. Matthias, St. Hilary, Transfiguration of Our Lord and other parishes from across the archdiocese who are involved in the same stage of the Renew My Church process.