Dear Parish Family,
 
A merry Christmas to you and your family.  This Christmas day, take a moment to thank God for the gift of Jesus and for the gift of your family, friends and our Parish family.  Today we all come together and rejoice at the Birth of our Savior.
 
A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by a young woman named Lindsey Schrock about a new initiative of Dynamic Catholic.  Some of you may know Dynamic Catholic through the books or events featuring its founder Matthew Kelly.  Dynamic Catholic has been around for ten years and they’ve spent the majority of that time researching and developing resources that help people rediscover the genius of Catholicism.
 
Well, Dynamic Catholic is launching something new called Dynamic Parish.  Dynamic Parish is an effort to help every parish in America not just survive, but to grow into everything God dreams of it becoming.  When I met with the team at Dynamic Catholic, they made our parish an offer they would only extend to five parishes in our diocese.
 
In exchange for being a part of a five-year pilot study, Dynamic Catholic would provide nearly a million dollars’ worth of world-class resources in books, programs, parish best-practices, and regular coaching for the parish leadership team.
After discussing it with our Parish leadership I said, yes.  I didn’t say yes because I thought taking this parish community to the next level would be easy.  It will certainly be difficult at times.  Rather, I said yes, because I believe our future at St. Joseph’s can be bigger than our past.  I said yes, because I hope that this parish can become everything God intends it to be.  I said yes, because I know that alone we can accomplish little, but together, with God’s grace, there is almost no height we cannot reach.
 
I couldn’t be more excited about what this new relationship can bring, and I hope that it primarily helps each and every one of us and our loved ones take the next right step toward a deeper relationship with God.
 
In the spirit of this great day there is a gift here for all of you.  In the past the Parish has given out a book to each family.  As a Dynamic Parish we have been given 15,000 books of Matthew Kelly’s latest book Rediscover the Saints this year to be distributed at all the Christmas Masses.  Each adult member of the family is able to take a book home with them today.
 
On behalf of Fr. John, Fr. Bernie, Dcn. Kevin, Dcn. Corky, Dcn. Bob Repke, Dcn. Bob Gardner and the entire Parish Staff I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas!
 
Fr. Sebastian