Initiatives in Ministry

Parishes, like communities and other social units, reinvent themselves from time to time. They take a renewed look at who makes up their membership, what their continuing and new needs are, and how they can serve their mission both within and outside the community. In this way they find new life and relationships, and hopefully, new excitement in their ministry for the upbuilding of God’s Kingdom.

Christ the Redeemer, from its beginning in 1972, has been a flexible community, one which was challenged and enlivened by its social and church context. The parish has grown with the development of Eastern Loudoun and Western Fairfax Counties. The most visible sign of that developing self-view was the new Church and pastoral facilities that parishioners dedicated with Bishop Loverde in February 2000. More people, more families, more children, more needs in our local community invited a new face for Christ the Redeemer.

The humorous comment among priests about building new facilities is the description of the movie Field of Dreams. In the movie, the man dreams of his baseball field and comments surely that “if you build it, they will come!” The parish rightly discerned the need to build new facilities in response to our own needs and to the many needs in our local community. With our present space we had the opportunity to better respond to the call of various ministries to serve.

Vatican II Initiatives

After the Second Vatican Council with its call for reform and renewal, Christ the Redeemer, like parishes across the United States, responded. Ministries were broadened to invite all the baptized to share in the work of the Church. There was a broadening and an intensification of interest in areas where ministry and service were needed. Ministries, especially in the form of councils and committees, sprung up within the parishes.

Believers in the Church in America were quick to fashion their ministries in very collegial and democratic ways. These were the days of Parish Councils, Finance Committees, committees for the multiple tasks of parish life. There were committees for religious education, for liturgy, for outreach, and many other diverse arenas of activities. These groups grew as sub-communities and new energy was generated in these initiatives.

The model was communal and small. In this model, parishioners were able to discover their common call as members of the People of God, as Pilgrim People. They could be Church in the experience of working and doing together. Christ the Redeemer Parish was founded and the first building constructed with the then-prevalent thought that small parishes of five hundred families would be formed. Other similar communities would be formed as growth happened.

Then came growth and development. All of us living in Northern Virginia are well aware of the extent of this growth. Christ the Redeemer today even after the forming of a new parish comes close to having 3400 registered families.

The New CTR

There are still a few parishioners who remember the simpler days of home masses, baptisms in the rectory basement, and religious education in our homes. Outreach ministry was personal and direct as a relatively small community of people knew each other. The small group of Mexican Catholics of thirty years ago would never have dreamed of the large Hispanic community at CTR with two weekend Masses, confessions, and a full religious education program for nearly 250 children.

We are now a community of seven weekend Masses. Our English-language religious education programs serve nearly a thousand young children and teens. Increasingly our sacramental programs are bilingual both for the children and for parents. We continue to be members of LINK, now an organization looking to meet more needs among God’s poor and how to be inclusive of many more religious communities in our area. In the last several weeks, either in the mail or by phone, new initiatives are being sought in the area of adequate housing and for emergency shelter in our area. These are the times we live in and in which Christ the Redeemer looks to carry on the work of the Kingdom.

Ministry Groups

During this past month, we’ve had two ministry sessions about new initiatives in ministry. The first meeting was a gathering of parishioners with a history or competency in serving the parish in the past. The second was an expanded group to make practical some structures to help CTR serve the mission of the Church and give new life to our growing community both within the parish and in our area. What we talked about at those meetings and what you will hear more about are “ministry groups."

These ministry groups will be action and task centered groups. Unlike committees of the past, these groups will not be brainstorming and visioning gatherings so much as people called together to do necessary tasks to carry on the life and service of the parish community. As a beginning of this ministry movement three groups have been formed: A Sunday Morning Liturgy Ministry Group, a Religious Education Ministry Group,and an Outreach Ministry Group.

These initiatives will be to invite parishioners to ministry, to help in their training, and to welcome newcomers to share their gifts and talents with the parish community. Be thinking of these things and your invitation will come soon. This is new life and hope for CTR.

CDH