St. Bernadette Parish

Advancing the Mission...Free to Serve

A Message From Our Pastor:

Greetings from St. Bernadette Parish! During the 2009 Lenten Season, we introduced the Diocesan led capital stewardship campaign, Advancing the Mission. This campaign fit well with the second phase of our “Fifty & Free” campaign, “Free to Serve”. We have talked about the elements of stewardship as a way of life through prayer, service and sharing.

The cornerstone of Stewardship as a way of life is our relationship with God that is grounded and nurtured through PRAYER. We see this evidenced in our parish with increased prayer experiences. Our parishioners have indicated a desire for still more adult enrichment/spiritual programs and youth ministry.

The second element in stewardship as a way of life is SERVICE. Since beginning our Advancing the Mission – Free to Serve campaign we have seen several examples of increased service within our parish. Our parish has been generous in offerings of time and talent with the formation of The Calling Outreach team, participation in the Fox Valley Warming Shelter and the creation of the Health Care Ministry and generous support of the various monthly Human Concerns promotions.

The last element in stewardship as a way of life is generous SHARING of God’s gifts to us. Though the generous sharing of our parishioners during our “Fifty and Free” campaign we have brought our parish to the brink of being debt free in just over three years.

With the Advancing the Mission – Free to Serve program, we have an opportunity to meet our ongoing and future parish needs as prioritized and identified by our parishioners. The primary needs are the fixing of the school roof, repair of the parking lot and making the school handicapped accessible for our various church functions.

With “Advancing the Mission-Free to Serve” we are not asking our parishioners for equal gifts but rather equal sacrifice. For those of you who are able, we ask that you renew your pledge to “Fifty and Free” for an additional three years to “Advancing the Mission – Free to Serve”. If unable to make a three year commitment we have included “Advancing the Mission – Free to Serve” envelopes along with your monthly sacrificial giving packet that can be used for regular contributions are possibly a larger one time contribution.

Thank you, for all you’ve shared in the past. May God bless you as you make these important decisions to help St. Bernadette continue to grow towards our 5oth Jubilee and beyond.

Yours in Christ,
Rev. Don Zuleger

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