History
For a collaboration group like ChristSeed to work, the
members must be committed to believing in God’s abundance and the goodness
of giving for the sake of giving. ChristSeed
began in the relationships of several people believing these principles.
Fr. Steve Binsfeld started the conversation between these people, and
shortly after Lisa Neu surfaced as the convener of the group.
These two were later named the first co-chairs of ChristSeed.
The group formally
began when that first group of conversationalists sent out invitations to
all pastors, youth ministers, pastoral associates and faith formation staff
at the fifteen area metro parishes. Below
is text from that first invitation:
You
are invited to attend a meeting of leaders in Adult Faith Formation and
Youth Ministry from the fifteen St. Cloud metro Churches. We will be taking time to meet each other, name our
resources, and formulate concrete plans for how we can work together.
Participants
will:
· Meet
one another.
· Name
our community’s resources.
· Form
concrete activities, projects and events we can do together.
Content for our first
meetings were strongly influenced by the work of Luther Snow in his book, The
Power of Asset Mapping: How Your Congregation Can Act on its Gifts.
The group has had
regular participation from eleven of the fifteen area metro parishes.
Upon clustering, this participation becomes a little more complicated
as most members of the group now represent more than one parish.
St. Joseph’s Parish in St. Joseph, St. Francis Xavier Parish in
Sartell, and Sacred Heart Parish in Sauk Rapids have always participated as
leaders in ChristSeed and continue to do so even though they are personally
unaffected by the clustering.
Some Past
ChristSeed Projects:
In the area of Youth
Ministry
-
Formation of a St. Cloud Metro Area youth ministry planning group
called Sprouts;
-
Collaboration on Youth Ministry activities;
-
Area-wide catechist/youth leader training.
In the area of RCIA:
In the area of Adult
Faith Formation:
-
Increased awareness of existing programming by sharing publicity
between parishes;
-
Purchased publicity for Why Catholic? in the form of a
billboard downtown and radio spots;
-
Sponsored speaker series for Young Adults.
Additionally, prior to
a ritual celebrating the changes clustering would bring our parishes, we
organized a pot-luck for area parish staffs inviting people to enter
relationships with one another, and sharing with them the resource that
ChristSeed could be in the tasks of collaboration.
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