Reorganization of the Parish Staff

Mar 15

Letter from the Pastor
March 17, 2024

When I was in high school, I can remember the pastor of my hometown parish telling someone the sage advice, “A new pastor should only trim the hedges during the first year.” It makes a lot of sense. Before any major decisions are made it is important take some time to learn about the community, assess the needs, and then move forward. Arriving during the peak of the Covid epidemic some decisions had to be made during my first year as pastor, but by and large, the hedges were trimmed, wearing a mask of course.

Since this is the second time I have been assigned to LBI, I already knew that the parish community was dynamic, faithful, and filled with wonderful people. Honestly, that was the main reason I asked to return. One area that I was not familiar with was the organizational structure of the Parish and Center. I needed to spend some time to learn about how things got done. Now, after three and a half years as the pastor I have decided there was a need to reorganize the parish staff.

Amy Marks, formally the coordinator of the Front Desk and the Development Director for the Center, is now the Director of Parish Operations. This newly created position will help streamline all that needs to get done to run a very large parish whose population quadruples every summer. Amy will oversee the parish development initiatives as well as the maintenance of the buildings, housekeeping, and the parish offices. We are in the process of creating a secretarial pool to ensure that the parish office will be open from 9 AM – 4 PM, Monday through Friday. If you have ever made your way all the way up to the parish office only to find out that it was closed, my apologies. There were always legitimate reasons why we had to close the office, but it was a signal that that system just didn’t work.

The reimagining of the parish operations was grounded in our Stewardship model. You have heard me say, in one way or another, our greatest asset is you – our parish community. Another piece of knowledge I gained over these few years is that our parish has a lot of people who are retired from their “day job” yet have a great desire to help the parish grow. The new organization relies on the goodwill of very talented parishioners who want to see our parish succeed.

Here are two examples. A few months ago, I reinstituted the Parish Facilities Committee. It is chaired by parishioner Joe Hummel. I wrote about it in one of these letters when it first began. The committee offers advice on repairing and maintaining all of our buildings. This past Thursday KSI Professional Engineers, at the recommendation of the Parish Facilities Committee, began an in-depth assessment of all of our buildings. This review will help us know exactly what needs to be done. I will also help us to prioritize the need so we can create a long-term plan to repair and maintain our buildings.

A few weeks ago, the Car Raffle Committee, chaired by parishioners Lisa and Bill Tyson, was put in place to coordinate our parish’s largest annual fundraising. The committee received three bids from the major car dealers on Rt. 72, compared “apples to apples,” and made the decision to accept the bid from Barlow Buick GMC of Manahawkin. This year we will be purchasing and raffling off two Buick Envistas, a Buick Encore, a GMC Canyon, and a GMC Terrain.

In both instances, our parishioners, as with all of the other committees here at St. Francis Parish, worked incredibly hard to achieve one goal, make St. Francis of Assisi Parish better. There will be a few kinks along the way, I am sure, but the vision behind this reorganization is the empowerment of the faithful stewards of this parish. That empowerment, I believe, will make our parish community an even stronger and an even more dynamic place to find the Kingdom of God in our midst.

Thank you to everyone who sits on our many committees. Thank you all for your faithfulness, for your support, and for your desire to continue to share your time, talent, and treasure with the St. Francis of Assisi Parish community. Now I am going back to trimming the hedges.

May God continue to bless you with Peace and All Good.