Several years ago, at the beginning of our Capital Campaign, our dedicated volunteers combed through our Parish Family to ask for donations for our new Pulte Family Life Center, the church roof, and many other priorities for our church. What was found in that process was very interesting, and even contradictory. On the one hand, we found that hundreds of the names in our Parish Registration were deceased or had moved out of the area. We had phone numbers that no longer worked, and mailing addresses that bounced back. On the other hand, we had people come up to us as we were speaking about the campaign who were never contacted at all, by mail, phone or in person. Some of those people informed us that they were members of the parish for years, if not decades. They were quite rightly confused as to why they never got the information packet about the Campaign, or were invited to our events. However, when we looked in our Parish Registration for them, they were nowhere to be found. They had never registered with our church. As you can imagine, this was not uncommon and it made us take a step back and evaluate our Parish Registration. After years of devotion by several key volunteers and staff members, we have cleansed our Parish Registration as best we can of those that are no longer active here at Saint John the Evangelist.
We are very blessed to have nearly 3100 active, registered families here at St. John. This number includes families of an individual as well as those with parents and their 8 children, single parents and widows. We have carefully focused our efforts on those members of our parish that have engaged in some way with our church in the past 2 years. That does not mean just giving, but if someone has participated in a Ministry, or have been involved in the events and activities here.
Our Parish Family is a beautiful representation of the love we share together for our faith and our church. However, as you can probably see from the pews at Mass, there are a significantly larger amount of families that are part of our church. Next weekend, we want to give all of you an opportunity to ensure you are part of our Family, no matter if you are here 2 weeks out of the year, 2 months, or all year long. You can be registered at more than one parish, so if you are concerned about your Northern parish, this does not impact your registration there at all.
By registering, you will be able to take advantage of the various opportunities here at St. John to get involved in the local community and learn about our events and programs. You will get the chance to receive envelopes for your giving, so you can receive tax letters for your generosity. There are so many reasons to register, I hope you will take a few moments to do next weekend after Mass.