September 20, 2012 DREam Team Minutes Present: Fr. Richard, Walter Haas, Marilyn St. Pierre, Sara Carey, Sue Hinderlider, Karen Wilkins-Butz, Mary Hicks, Kathy O Brien, Paulette Croteau, Corinne Hennen, Marilyn Derbyshire, Sr. Elizabeth. Peggy Long, Jill St. Yves, Brigid Johnson The opening prayer was for the feast of St. Andrew Kim Taegon and companions Introductions Paulette welcomed everyone to their brand new building and encourages us all to let the diocese know how great it is! Old Business DRE handbook Sara Carey: we re working on it. o We took the list from the last meeting and Sue suggested we divide it into sections and work on one section at a time. o The committee started with sacraments since that should be the longest one. o They are compiling all the information to present to the bishop for diocesan guidelines. o The second section will be stuff that s already done like the trust fund forms, the conformity list, the safe environment stuff. o Karen suggested adding out-of sync questions to the handbook. o Peggy and Walt can we add questions about the size of the program; if they are multi-lingual, etc. for a better reference point. o Corinne we got some good information about volunteers at the conference in May so some of that information should be included. o Walt an annual calendar from the diocese with safe environment dates, trust fund dates, etc. would be helpful. o Fr. Richard once we get the parish info bishop has asked him to sit down with Fr. David Carter and go over the canon law issues. Peggy give late registration families the opt-out form with the lesson plan and gets the opt=out form back immediately. Peggy.long@allsaintsknoxville.com Ministry day send your registrations in; it s first come, first serve on sessions. Remind people again in October. Ruth Queen Smith is doing 2 hours on the New Evangelization with young adults.
Frazzled Monsignor Al is not able to come so who else would be good. Suggestions: Fr. Sweeney. Ruth Queen Smith, Fr, Doug Owens, Fr. David Carter. Lake Barkley Nov. 4-7. Send in the form for tax exempt form. However, you will have to have something with the church s name on to pay for the room at Lake Barkley. Bring the form with you. o Be sure to vote early. o The conference is $75 for the three days and the rooms are very inexpensive. o Walking trails, golf, breaks built in to do lots of things. o Carol Eipers is coming to speak o We will have forums for the various ministries again this year: DRE s, diocesan people, etc. If you have a topic of interest, tell Sara. Karen suggested the topic could be: who is going to take our place when we retire? Parish and diocesan jobs are usually second incomes and few people can live on that. o Kathy O Brien They are starting from nothing at St. Michael (the Glenmary mission in Unicoi county), her job is immediately, from day one, to work herself out of a job, give them ownership so that it doesn t fall apart when someone leaves. For the Glenmarys graduation means that the parish becomes a diocesan parish and the Glenmarys leave. They have to be able to stand on their own. o Mary Fran Cassidy is speaking along with Dan Mulhall, Michael Trujillo from CRS. o Monday afternoon is for relaxation and fun! There is Line Dancing and RCL is sponsoring a movie and popcorn event. o Mass is offered daily. Alternative Religious Education o Jill is starting once a month WCC with dinner and breaking up into small groups age and language appropriate. Using Sr. Linda Gaupin s book on Reconciliation and Eucharist, Embracing the Vision. This is in addition to RE. RE doesn t meet that week and they ask all the other parish activities to stop for the evening. The catechetical portion is 40 minutes. Sister s program calls for three hours. They had 400-500 people show up between Wednesday and Sunday. This is their sacramental preparation so Jill called those who didn t show up on Sunday. Jill calls it the opportunity to give parents the tools to prepare their own children for sacraments. Priests are totally committed to this. o http://www.amazon.com/embracing-vision-sacramental-catechesis- Reconcilation/dp/1585956449 or http://store.pastoralplanning.com/emvi.html o All Saints sponsors a Learning Liturgy parents are invited to come with their kids and more come every year. o Walt has only nine kids. Only one first grader but used the 4 th and 5 th graders to help teach the 1 st grader.
o Kathy most of our families are Hispanic and many are still attached to St. Mary Parish in Johnson City. The ones she has talked to are looking for bible studies. Kathy will have a program for the adults starting with lectio divina at the same time as the kids. 15 minutes before class, prayer, separate classes and then round up and snacks. o Walt uses the T-3 series from Ascension Press with great success. o Paulist Evangelization Ministries has developed Living the Eucharist and the diocese wants to use it during Lent next year. It uses small group plus WCC events and is less expensive than Renew. Few of the DRE s know about it however. We have asked the bishop s office to notify DRE s about things like this at the same time as the pastors. o Paulette inviting juniors and seniors who are already confirmed to be the teachers in the grade school program. A married couple is using the Catholic Faith Handbook for Teens in the youth program. Paulette takes attendance at the youth gathering because her CCD kids are told it s expected, she even had some home-schooled teens show up. The youth leaders are giving the kids a sense of belonging to and contributing to the parish. o Sr. Elizabeth has a program on church history that she invite people to. About 60 come and she asked for their suggestions for future sessions. She also leads something for the women every two weeks with Mass and a talk. Last week they had a group of empty nesters. They keep organizing different things for adults and the people in the parish get to know one another as they get to know more about their faith. o Fr. Richard You are always welcome to bring youth and RCIA to Fr. Richard s Divine Liturgy. They approach the faith from a very different world view as well as a different practice of the faith. It would be especially good for RCIA. They always have fellowship after the service. They meet at 10 a.m. on Sundays at the Chancery. There is lots of symbolism there that reveals their faith. Their beliefs always come from their prayers and people are catechized through the liturgy. Jill when did religious education become necessary as opposed to learning all we needed from the liturgy? Fr. Richard: It was in the Middle Ages faith became an intellectual activity instead of totally an act of worship. Protestant reformers really didn t believe in the sacrifice of the mass so worship became a listening and learning experience. For the Eastern churches worship is work. Pews are a protestant innovation so people could sit and learn. Our faith comes from our hearts not our minds. Karen teaching strategies for special needs kids. o Exceptional Teaching by Jim Pierson (a Knoxville guy) is an excellent resource. We can t say we can t service them just because we re not special ed people. There are ways of reaching them and catechizing them, Karen is going to call Jim Pierson and see if he has some copies in his basement that he will sell us. Then we ll ask Fr. Richard to get one for
each parish. It has all the strategies needed for dealing with a wide variety of disabilities plus a DVD. o She also has two booklets for classroom teachers which she will ask Fr. Rich to copy. Karen has a whole section of disability stuff and could be a resource for any DRE. (She also has a degree in Special Ed.) o Loyola Press has produced a kit for special needs Adaptive First Eucharist and Adaptive First Reconciliation. o NCCL is partnered with NCPD and members have access to all their webinars. Fr. Mike Sweeney has put his pamphlets into a booklet form. Brigid has that in an electronic form and will send it to Fr. Rich to send out to everyone. Lunch Marilyn does anyone need Ignatius press grade 1 and 2? She can send them out. Fr. Rich has some materials from Pflaum if anyone needs them. Karen has Sadlier materials if anyone needs them. New business Child protection o same materials as last year. o Deacon Sean told auditors that we would do the children s training in early fall with make-up sessions later. All forms must be turned in to the diocese by March. Duplicate everything including opt-out forms for the diocesan files. Deacon is still hoping that they would do the audit online. o Karen s cover sheet is a winner. o The diocese is still mandating that the credit check permission be signed before a background check is performed. o Peggy gives late registration families the opt-out form with the lesson plan and gets the opt-out form back immediately. NCCL membership special The NCCL is offering free membership until November 1. Sara printed the last three weekly Catechetical Leader for everyone to look at. The national conference will be in Cleveland, Ohio and it s later in May May 19-23. It should miss most First Communions. They are very much in tune with what is going on in the trenches. o NCCL awards It was agreed that nominations would be written for Carol Bird and her Right-to-Life parish program (New Wineskins Award), Ruth Queen Smith (Distinguished Service) and Sr. Mary Michael (Catechetical). Copyright Walt is concerned about a disregard for copyright laws. He did a quick search on the internet and got the general criteria for copyright laws. o You can t copy workbooks buy more! o You can t copy CD s - buy more!
o There is also a license to show commercial movies that each parish has to have. o Sara will look for general principles to add to the handbook. Next meeting: November 29 at St. Thomas the Apostle in Lenoir City from 10-2. Corinne will do chapter 6 and 7 of Practice Makes Catholic. Respectfully submitted: Brigid Johnson