St. Francis of Assisi Parish is a service parish with a long tradition of outreach. Since its founding, we have sought ways to impact the larger Raleigh community positively. Father David McBriar, the first Franciscan pastor here, said, “Let us find out what the community of Raleigh needs, figure it out, and go do it.” That has been the culture and personality of our parish for over 40 years.
This service is primarily through the many ministries found at St. Francis of Assisi. Recently, the parish held its annual ‘Ministry Fair’, where we featured our over 90 ministries. St. Francis’s Director of Engagement and Development, Stacey Shine, says, “The theme for this year is ‘Do One Thing.’ Get involved and find your purpose, and even if you’re involved with a ministry already, find another. You never know what you’ll find and like, and won’t know until you try whether it’s a fit.”
JaVon Hansknecht, the Director of Justice and Peace, says this year’s fair was very successful. “Over 500 people signed on interest forms for ministries, and that’s always wonderful to see. The fair is a beautiful representation of the parish’s ministry opportunities, and the atmosphere is joyful and heartfelt, reminding the parish of how we are growing together as a community.” These ministries cover a lot of territory. JaVon points out that the ministries show “What our community is doing for both our parishioners, through Pastoral Care, and what we do for outreach through the Justice and Peace ministries, even to the ‘ins and outs’ of how our parish operates; the community center there talking about their department, the finance team talking about how our finances operate, it’s a cool blend of how we do things here.”
Stacey also emphasized that it wasn’t only the parishioners touring the fair that benefited. “Another cool thing,” says Stacey, “was ministry leaders got to meet each other.” This interaction allowed for a conversation about having a social ministry leader meeting to focus on collaboration. She feels that bringing leaders together would be beneficial. “Already, we have the Prayer Shawl ladies, offering prayer shawls to families of the Emmaus funeral ministry, and there’s an overlap with the Stephen ministry and the grief and divorce teams.” The potential exists to have a more significant impact and reach through possible ministry collaborations.
JaVon agrees there is potential to tap into ministry collaborations. “One of the cool things about having so many ministries,” says JaVon, “is some of them are innovative in their methods and doing well; they are trying out new strategies in getting good volunteers; these are strategies others may not be using and, if you get everyone together, you could have sessions on what’s working and what’s not. People would ask, ‘Could you help me out?’ Those are powerful interactions that can help open the door to new conversations. We would love to plan an appreciation event that brings together all the ministry leaders.” Events like these would allow for discussion of those things that make a ministry successful and allow a general understanding of why our ministries exist and how to connect them even more to our mission.
The 500 sign-ups at this year’s fair were impressive and similar to what they received last year. “While accurate numbers are unavailable,” says JaVon, “looking at the ‘St. Francis Serves’ site, we have 1100-1200 accounts that are relatively active since the site is new. We most likely have 15-20% of the parishioners active in 90+ ministries; the goal is to get to about 40%.” The Parish Leadership staff are trying to figure out how to better engage parishioners in pastoral plans. “Currently, that 15-20% is mainly the older population. We want to challenge staff and ministry leaders to engage the younger parishioners in engaging those demographics better. The hardest puzzle is to find a schedule that works for parents and younger people’s schedules, but we are moving in a good direction to put all those pieces in place,” he says.
Stacey re-emphasizes the theme: “We only ask you to ‘Do one thing’ and take that baby step to get more involved. Father Chris will discuss ‘what it means to be a parishioner’ in his homilies and talks as we move forward, and we want everyone to contribute their time, talent, and treasure.” JaVon agrees and adds, “The number of ministries can be incredibly overwhelming to some people, but we only ask you to look into one. That’s the message: a ‘weight off your shoulders’ approach. More than ½ of the opportunities are donation opportunities where they are easy one-time things to pick up an extra loaf of bread, or packet of paper, or whatever. Easy one-time things; everyone goes shopping, and many people may not realize that even simple things like that are important and impactful in the community; we just need to find a way to publicize that more.”
The emphasis will be on the personal touch because one-on-one conversations tend to get more people involved. JaVon says, “We are considering doing “Get Connected” weekends to connect with pastoral or Justice and Peace ministries. We are toying with these ideas to build interest and participation.” Stacey has helped make things easier for our parishioners by creating a hand-out packet of the ministries, broken into Parish Life, Liturgical, Justice and Peace, etc. It has the name of the ministry, the contact person, and a brief description, and on the back, the matching charism it addresses. This handout is available in the parish office through Stacey. She also says, “If you couldn’t attend the ministry fair, please contact me at my email (stacey.shine@stfrancisraleigh.org) or call if you need help finding a ministry.”
As part of its founding and tradition, St. Francis of Assisi Parish has always felt a call to serve others. We are sending out a ‘Call to Action’ for all parishioners to consider getting involved by trying to ‘Do One Thing’ this year. The parish’s video on Embracing our Franciscan Call highlights what we can do to continue our tradition of service! Ask Yourself, “What is the ‘one thing’ I can do this year to help?”
