Stewardship is at the heart of our efforts here at Our Lady of Lourdes. Our parish mission is to “invite and lead all people to know and love Jesus Christ and to live in their Catholic faith through word, sacrament, community, evangelization, and service.”
In January of this year, the new Welcome and Engagement Committee began to help support this mission. Curt Williams and Bob Bowerman are Co-Chairs of the committee.
“The committee focuses on welcoming people and providing opportunities for parishioners and others to engage in service to the parish and beyond,” Curt says.
The committee isn’t exactly new to the parish community, however. It came as a result of the Stewardship, Evangelization, and Communication Committees merging.
“These three committees were created as part of the five-year plan,” Curt says. “However, stewardship was already organized and had existed in the past.”
Since the groups had a similar goal in mind, it made sense to combine their efforts to form one larger committee, instead of several smaller, separate ones. The group meets monthly — sometimes together in the parish office and other times virtually.
“The three working committees had implemented most of their standalone programs and projects,” Bob says. “The remaining programs had considerable overlap and needed additional staffing. The name was chosen to better reflect the current and anticipated programs the committee had chosen.”
The committee is now responsible for working with Catholic Stewardship Consultants on our stewardship newsletter, as well as organizing and supporting events in the parish, such as the Back to School Supplies Drive, A Day for Him, and the Parish Retreat, among others. They also are actively supporting the existing outreach ministries — CPO, Legion of Mary, St. Vincent de Paul, and Children of God.
More than simply an organizational effort, the Welcome and Engagement Committee provides the opportunity to put stewardship and ministry into action.
“It’s a chance to actively live our faith,” Curt says. “Faith requires more than just believing — it requires service to others as Jesus taught.”
Curt got involved in our community as his wife, Jennifer, had served in the area of stewardship for five years after Bob’s wife, Teri, created the stewardship committee. Curt credits many of the stewardship efforts to Bob and Teri, who have given to our parish in many ways through the years.
“My primary involvement came as a result of the Parish-School Engagement Committee, which I chaired,” Curt says. “We learned about the McGread Stewardship model and became convinced that OLLCC needed to pursue it.”
The Welcome and Engagement Committee welcomes anyone who wants to get involved to contact Curt Williams at 919-815-3494 or ccurtiswilliamsjr@gmail.com, or Bob Bowerman at bob.bowerman@gmail.com.