Story by Shelley Wolf
Synod 2020 might be in the rearview mirror, but the parishioners at St. Stanislaus Parish in Bristol were inspired by the challenge of addressing the needs of the local Church. Ever since the Synod Closing Mass in August 2021, they’ve been finding ways to revitalize their parish community and extend their reach beyond the confines of their church walls.
They’ve also found numerous ways to make their mission welcoming and delightful for all. And it all began when just a couple of people got together.
“When we came back, we discussed that we needed to continue the work of the synod committee,” says Debbie Souza, who sat on the Synod Preparatory Committee for the Archdiocese of Hartford and is the youth minister for St. Stanislaus Parish in Bristol.
Deacon Jonathan Bruzas, who served as a St. Stanislaus Parish delegate to the synod, also agreed that they needed to keep the synod spirit alive.
So they named themselves the Parish Action Committee, and invited other parishioners at St. Stanislaus to join them. In time, the committee, which started with six or seven people, has grown to 20 regulars.
“We started having meetings with the theme of ‘Grow + Go.’ The goal was to revitalize our parish,” says Bruzas, who became the leader of the Parish Action Committee. “Initially the meetings were intended to address what we are doing right in the parish, what we are doing wrong, and what we should be doing that we’re not doing. We took that from the synod process.
“We soon realized that there are a number of activities going on at St. Stan’s, but somehow the word was not getting out,” Bruzas says. “Small committees were formed to address items that the group thought would show us as an active parish community.”
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
To tackle various assignments as needed, members broke into six different subcommittees. Some of their accomplishments so far include making the parish website more user-friendly and up-to-date, restarting the parents’ CCD group, establishing social activities for men, and assisting the deacon with spirituality initiatives.
The Parish Action Committee also set the goal of creating a warm and welcoming parish environment. To achieve that, several welcoming subcommittees took on the following assignments:
*Invite parishioners back to Mass with a custom-designed postcard. “Once some of the COVID restrictions were lifted, we had a contest with our CCD classes to design a postcard inviting people back to church and for in-person Masses,” says Sousa. “The goal was to get youths and their families involved in inviting others back to church and Mass.”
More than 40 entries were submitted by children of all ages. In a blind competition, artwork crafted by Maya Phillips Jaros, who was a kindergartner at the time, garnered the most committee votes. Using paper handouts and magazines as her materials, the six-year-old assembled an inviting collage that included cutouts of the church, colorful trees and sunflowers, a cross, two outstretched arms, and the phrase “Come back to the Church” across the top. Then, using magic markers, she added a blue sky.
Prizes included a gift card to Amazon for the first place winner and gift cards to a local ice cream shop for the second and third place winners. To create a 4- by 6-inch postcard, Souza incorporated the first-place image onto the front, added Mass times on the back, and had the postcard printed at Staples.
Then to reach parishioners who had fallen away from Mass, the subcommittee obtained a mailing list of registered parishioners who were no longer returning weekly or monthly envelopes. The assumption was that perhaps they were no longer attending Mass. In April 2022, right before Easter, the team mailed the postcard invitations to more than 300 households.
*Formally greet new parishioners with a welcome kit. The parish’s old welcome process faded during the early days of the pandemic, so the committee developed a new one. Members obtained a list of all people who joined the parish in the previous year and a half and, one-by-one, formally welcomed them with a phone call.
Members offered to deliver a welcome bag to each new parishioner’s home or at a meetup before or after Mass, whichever the newcomers preferred. The welcome bags include a parish ornament, a rosary, a divine mercy card, prayer booklet, a cross, and a new tri-fold brochure (another product of the committee), which outlined several ministries and clubs in the parish. The committee members also invited the newcomers to join a group.
“This one-to-one meeting was not only to give them the welcome bag, but also helped these parishioners meet someone from our parish,” Souza says, “and have a contact to reach out to with any questions.” This welcome activity is still ongoing.
*Extend hospitality to the public at the Dozynki festival. Every fall, St. Stanislaus Parish, which is made up of Polish-Americans as well as more recent Polish immigrants, invites the general public to its popular Dozynki festival, held annually in September, the weekend after Labor Day. The Parish Action Committee saw this festival as an opportunity to connect with the larger Bristol community.
“We wanted to welcome people to our church grounds and to our festival as they joined us in our fall harvest celebration,” says Souza. So members set up a welcome table, where they provided free helium-filled balloons to children, sold reusable “St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish” tote bags for two dollars, and gave directions and general information to everyone that walked by.
This year, the committee plans to display copies of the church bulletin with Mass times, ministry brochures, flyers on religious education classes, and other resource materials to promote its faith-based parish activities and educational programs.
Behind the welcome table, visitors are directed to a “photo booth.” Crafted from panels with a hand-painted image by parishioner and artist Wanda Koceva, the photo booth depicts two Polish dancers with cut-out faces, allowing visitors to pose as dancers for a fun photo commemorating their time at St. Stanislaus.
