St. Paul Buried Treasure

Earlier this year, I mentioned that we would be bringing new life to Buried Treasure. That time is now as Buried Treasure now has new life as our Parish Stewardship initiative. Our new approach was inspired by the successes and challenges of our Buried Treasure initiative over the past two years and we thank you for that.

As you know from our parish bulletin and announcements at all Masses last weekend, we have held discussion groups with all major parish groups and it has been a humbling and inspiring experience. God gives us two ears and one mouth for a reason and we have been doing a lot of listening and taking a lot of notes from conversations with a very broad cross-section of our parish.

If you have not attended yet, tomorrow night is your chance at 7:00 PM in the Parish Centre Gym.

If you are in need of childcare, members of our awesome youth ministry team will gladly take care of your children.

We would like to briefly share with you our Theme, Vision and Mission and the rest of the evening will be spent listening to you on how best to improve on our Catholic stewardship pillars of Hospitality, Prayer, Formation and Service and help this community deal with the challenges that our growth presents.

This invitation has been in the past two parish bulletins but sometimes these opportunities get overlooked in our busy schedules. If you are able to make it tomorrow, please join us. If you are able to reply back to me, that would also be great.

Thank you so much.

In response to community interest, we are delighted to announce our Summer Walks & Hikes program. This is a great way to make new friends and build relationships, one step at a time. We all know we need more exercise – why not do it together with folks in our own community! You are also welcome to bring friends.

This is an easy commitment to make. Here’s the deal:

Wednesday Walks

These take place at 7:00 PM Sharp on most Wednesday nights. This is something for most fitness levels and the walks are in Richmond so we know there are no hills! All walks are stroller-friendly, so you can bring the very young ones. However, you should be prepared to walk anywhere from 5 to 10 kilometres and at a relatively brisk pace. The instructions are simple – show up at the posted destination on time and let’s have some fun! Details on all our Wednesday Walks can be seen on our website, including a link to the Richmond Walking Guide Book. Hard copies of the Richmond Walking Guide Book are also available at most Richmond Community Centres.

Saturday Hikes

These are a bit more challenging, some of them are not stroller-friendly and be prepared for elevation changes. Because these are outside of Richmond, we will meet on the posted dates in the St. Paul Parking Lot at 9:30 AM after the 9:00 AM Mass and car pool whenever possible. Links to the hike details will be posted on our website courtesy of Vancouver Trails.  Please be sure to review their website, especially the section on “Safety” at  www.vancouvertrails.com . The most important reminders are to wear sturdy hiking footwear, dress for the weather and in layers, bring plenty of water and a light lunch.

A Few Guidelines

• Please check this website on the day of the event in case we need to cancel because of poor weather or other unforeseen circumstances.
• Although there is very little risk in walking or hiking, we do need to stress that all participants do so at their own risk. All we are doing is scheduling the date, time and location and hoping to build some great friendships.
• This program is designed to be as simple as possible and as such, we are not able to provide transportation to the walk locations or to the parish parking lot to meet for our Saturday hikes. As you get to know more people through these events, you will have a great opportunity to make those kinds of arrangements on your own. However, for the Saturday hikes we will make best efforts to carpool from the parish to the hike location.
• These are family-friendly events and we ask that families come together, as we are not able to take responsibility for minors.

Hope you enjoyed those awesome Olympic Games. This shows what can happen when enough people put their heads and hearts together on a worthwhile project. Just think of what can happen when we apply the same spirit and effort toward connecting the treasure within us to the needs of our parish community!

Thank you so much for your great participation at our January 18^th Coffee and Tea Night. Here is a small collection of feedback we received that evening:

• “We come and go from Mass so quickly – it’s time to get to know this community.”
• “We are new to the parish and immediately felt at home here at St. Paul’s and we want to get involved.”
• “II need some help but I’m also interested in helping”
• “I was just baptized last year and it’s time to become a part of this community.”
• “I’ve retired from work and it’s time to get more involved now.”
• “I’m interested in getting involved together with my young family – like visiting with people who are sick or shut in.
• “My husband and I grew up in this parish and we’d like to get involved again.”
• “It’s important that my children should have an attachment to this community.”

This is awesome! The overwhelming feeling we got that night though was “we want to get moving!” We agreed that it is time to take action and begin working with existing parish groups to get the ball rolling and have scheduled another evening on Tuesday March 23^rd  at 8:00 PM in the Parish Centre. We will make coffee and tea and again, we invite you to bring some finger foods to share. Our parish priests, sisters, deacon and representatives of our parish groups should be there and we will break out into discussion/planning groups to help dig up that Buried Treasure within us all. There will be a lot of great discussion but most importantly, we will focus on taking action!

Please schedule this in your calendar and we look forward to seeing you then!

Hi folks

It’s been a few months since we launched Buried Treasure at St. Paul Parish and we want to thank you for your interest. We had a lot of “treasure maps” completed, a lot of questions, and a lot of people commenting that they felt it was time to get involved in their parish community.

We have completed a thorough analysis of all the gifts and needs that exist in our community and have had conversations with most of the people who filled in their treasure map. The results are very fascinating. Indeed, there is an abundance of Buried Treasure in our community just waiting to be discovered.

We’re ready for the next stage in the conversation and have scheduled a Coffee and Tea evening. Here are the details:

Monday, January 18th at 7:30 PM
in the Parish Centre

(We will serve coffee and tea but welcome any snacks and finger foods)

Our goal for the evening is as follows:

1. Get to know each other a lot better – I know we’ll find a lot in common.
2. Review the results of our “Treasure Map” findings
3. Brainstorm on how to connect the most dominant needs and gifts within our community
4. Develop a plan to grow this movement!

Look forward to seeing you there!

I believe we have all fantasized at one time about finding an old map that leads us to a chest full of treasure. Many of us have also heard the old “Acres of Diamonds story,” about a farmer in Africa who spent his whole life exploring for diamonds, only to die a pauper without realizing that under his own farm lay one of the richest deposits of diamonds ever found. You can read it through the following link:

 (http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/rconwellacresofdiamonds.htm)

We have treasure more priceless than diamonds in our own backyard at St. Paul Parish. There are over two thousand families who faithfully come to Mass every weekend and perhaps 20% of these families are active in our parish because they have discovered the priceless fullness of life that comes from involvement in this community of faith. This treasure is evident just by looking around at all the good things happening at 8251 St.  Alban’s and beyond. These folks have invested their lives in the service of us all and we are grateful!

What about the rest of us, the 80% who have not yet had a chance to become involved? What are our excuses?

1. “I don’t have time.” You know what? nobody has a monopoly on a busy schedule. It’s unbelievable how busy the lives of our active parishioners are. And yet, they still find the time to do more when they are called upon. They make this community a priority.
2. “I don’t think I can commit to anything right now.” It’s wise not to jump into any large commitments right away without thinking them through. A lot of people have found great benefit though in choosing a very small task where the parish needs your support. Check out our downloadable treasure map at the right of this page, fill it in and choose or suggest one small area where you feel you could help – for instance “occasionally bringing snacks for our youth programs like LIFE Teen or SPIRIT.” Then, drop it into the collection basket. We welcome your participation, even if it’s in a small way.
3. “I am going through a rough time right now.” I hear you. We all have times where life can be trying. What a lot of folks have found during these times is that the prayer and friendship of a Catholic community of faith can be a powerful source of support. Again, fill in a treasure map and drop it in the collection basket.
4. “The church has been a source of hurt to me.” Wow, you’re in good company then. I once had a bad experience with chocolate ice cream and to this day, I much prefer vanilla or strawberry. St. Paul Parish at times has been my chocolate ice cream. However, what I’ve realized after this community has helped me heal is that this place is my Neopolitan – chocolate, vanilla and strawberry in one and & it tastes pretty darn good!
5. “I need to spend more time with my family.” Now, here’s the cool thing about parish life. We’ve always made sure to involve our children in as many things as possible in this community and we usually are involved together. We’ve come to the conclusion that St. Paul’s is our own village and as the saying goes, “the village raises the child.” We have met our best friends through this community and our children have met the best friends in the world in this community and we can sleep nights not worrying about them.

So, I challenge you to come up with more excuses for not getting involved in parish life. I guarantee a compelling answer! We welcome your input through the “Contact” tab at the top of this page.

Eight Years ago, 9/11 shocked the lives of people around the world. Airline passengers were stranded as all flights were grounded. Within a few hours, food, blankets, sleeping bags, pillows and toiletries were delivered from households all over our community. Resources and help were called in from all over including home billeting, short wave radio help to call home, media relations, transportation for our guests, translation, etc. By dinnertime, St. Paul’s was ready to host our guests. After a few nights, busloads of grateful friends left for home forever touched by the love of a faith-filled community.

In many ways, this happens all the time around here in situations where our people are experiencing their own personal 911s, even though we may not see it.  The reality though is that the work gets done by around 20% of this community. God uses our active parishioners to change lives and he’s calling the rest of us to step up to the plate and answer the call. We are all blessed with incredible treasures and needs but far too often, they remain buried.

This awesome community at St. Paul Parish is inviting you to dig up the Buried Treasure within.

Buried Treasure is a whole new way of connecting at St. Paul’s. We aim to seek and to find the treasure within us and connect with the needs of our parish community.

We all have a lot to offer, there are ways that we all need help and we know it is often difficult to take the first small steps.

Our community can help.

Starting September 12 – 13, along with a friendly pirate or two perhaps and a whole bunch of fellow treasure hunters, we invite you to spend some time with us outside the Church after all masses or in the Parish Centre if it’s raining.  In the bulletins you receive after Mass next week, there will be Treasure Maps.  You can also download this Treasure Map at the right side of this page. If you feel it’s time to step up your involvement in our community or if you need the help of our community, we invite you to complete your map and hand it in at the Buried Treasure table next week or drop it into the collection basket the following week. We will treat this information confidentially and will be in touch soon to help you connect with our welcoming community. There will also be a bunch of other tables representing the large number of parish groups that are all prepared to help.

Our prayer is that the 80% of our community who has not yet had a chance to get involved will experience the joy that 20% of our community has known.