Please join us for the first Assembly of Disciples gathering at St. Matthias on August 26 after the 4:30 Mass. The Winton Wyoming Pastoral Region has a lot to offer in terms of both faith formation and evangelization. The Assembly of Disciples is designed to provide you with the opportunity to hear about how to engage in and support these awesome ministries. It seems time is always the limiting factor. With so many worthy causes it is sometimes difficult to prioritize where to best give our time. The Assembly of Disciples will gather three times each year, once at each of our parishes, to provide an overview of the different ministry opportunities in our region and how they work together toward our overall mission.

What can you expect from The Assembly of Disciples? We will begin each gathering with a meal. After your body is nourished we will explore ways to feed your soul with an overview of the various ministries offered within our region. A few of them will be new, the Alpha Course for instance, and others will be more familiar, such as the PSR Program (Sunday School) and he RCIA program.

The Assembly of Disciples is not necessarily something totally new, but rather a forum to promote engagement within our region. As we have been working in our three parishes to become ONE region, there have been a few challenges with communication. The Assembly of Disciples will help address this and formulate a cohesive vision for our region.

The more people from our Region that become actively involved, the stronger and more vital our whole region will become. It is my hope that everyone who passes through the doors of any of our parishes will encounter Jesus Christ, not only in the Mass and the Holy Eucharist, but also in the community as we gather together. If for no other reason, this Assembly of Disciples will allow us to be more intentional in our personal outreach to those around us, particularly those with whom we worship on Sundays.

In some ways, you could consider this meeting as a state of the region address--looking at where we are, where we want to go and how we plan to get there. We will begin with a ministry overview, but will conclude by inviting you to step forward and to get more involved. We will break into Ministry Teams to plan the next steps for each program. Again, the more parishioners who get involved the stronger our region will become. WE are ALL called to “proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9) How we are specifically called varies, and hopefully through the Assembly of Disciples you will discern where God’s call is leading you to participate in the saving action of the Church.

In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit was given to particular people at a particular time for a particular purpose. At Pentecost the Spirit of God was given to the Church. Let’s begin to call upon the Holy Spirit within us to do the work of God in our world beginning here and now in this the Year of our Lord, Anno Domini. Thank you for reading, and I hope to see everyone at St. Matthias on August 26 for our region’s first Assembly of Disciples Meeting.