In Our Thoughts and In My Words: a personal writing consortium

Join writers Kristi Anderson and Vic Klimoski for this 2024 New Year online writing consortium.

A Group of Writing Explorers

Every story is an adventure.  Be part of a group of writing explorers who uncover what it means to thrive from within, in your church and in your community. The four-part series begins with discovering  the importance of personal narrative, addressing woes and challenges, unearthing our vocation and dreaming new futures into being.

Each 60-minute session begins with prayer followed by a guest storyteller and thematic discourse.  Participants will then have time during the session to break apart the message in writing.  The group will return to share thoughts and excerpts from their work.  No writing experience necessary!

Personalized Coaching

In addition to the session, participants who wish to receive further writing help on their emerging story can arrange up to three 30-minute sessions with either Kristi or Vic.

The consortium will meet Mondays on Zoom from Noon-1 pm CST

              January 8            Session 1:  My Story Begins

              January 15          Session 2:  We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it

              January 22          Session 3:  Thriving in Vocation

              January 29          Session 4:  Riding the Wave into the Future

Register Online

Kristi Anderson is a tender-hearted, hope-filled writer.  She has won numerous awards from the Catholic Media Association for her writing and editing.  In 2022, she won first place from the association as “Writer of the Year”.  Kristi is the editor of The Central Minnesota Catholic, as well as the co-chair of the Eucharistic Revival for the Diocese of Saint Cloud.  She holds a MA in Pastoral Ministry from Saint John’s School of Theology.

Vic Klimoski cares about words.  He is a writer, adult educator, and consultant.  He employs the written word, especially in poetic form, to escort us into Mystery and to help us give expression to our encounters with God.  Vic has written and published numerous poems and authored several books related to leadership and ministry.  Vic holds a MA in Theology from Saint John’s School of Theology and a Ph.D. in adult learning and development.

Healthy Leaders Pause and Reflect

Ancient Christian Practices

by Barbara Sutton

My day job—and evening and weekend work!—focuses on three things: ministering across differences, planning for an uncertain future, and fostering spiritual growth.

In my observation, too often the key stakeholders in bridge building for a thriving mission find themselves on the front lines of change without receiving as much as they give. By nature of their positions, they’re the ones pouring out to others and giving of themselves for the community. And they need time to pause and reflect.

Pause to Recognize the Divine Spark

At the recent Pastoral Visit with Bishop Neary, he celebrated the Eucharist. During his homily, he asked us to pause and look into the eyes of the person sitting beside us and say, “I see Christ in you.” It felt relatively easy, since I was sitting between Joe Towalski and Kristi Bivens, people I appreciate. And yet I was prompted to wonder . . . how do I pause long enough to recognize the divine spark in everyone?

Self-awareness is the bridge to healing our relationships, whether at work, home or in our community. And self-awareness requires reflection. Self-awareness help us re-write the stories that form as a result of broken bridges, or bridges not crossed.

Pause to Notice Patterns

In our headlong rush to love and follow Jesus and to love and serve those we are called to minister to and with, we might not notice the unhealthy patterns that don’t include time to pause and recollect ourselves.

Pause to Follow the Fruit of the Spirit

Pausing for intentional reflection brings the patterns of our ministry to light, to see what is unhealthy, and deepens our awareness to where we are bearing fruit—the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

“Carve out a day every week, or an hour a day, or a moment each hour, and abide in the loving silence of the Friend. Feel the frenetic concerns of life fall way.” + Saint John of the Cross +

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How to Pause and Reflect

Pondering becomes a prayer when reflection arises in a mind that is open to God.

Recall a broken bridge moment. Reflect…

• What am I bringing to the interaction?

• Consider a sacred gaze:

  • PONDER the situation, hold it lightly and give it space.  Turn it over and consider it from various angles.  Ruminate on it a bit.

  • What is it about my background that moves me to “see” or interpret the way I do?

  • Am I seeing/observing or interpreting and judging?

• How do I identify and repair differences and cultural ruptures?

• How do I navigate differences and conflicts?

• How do I put myself in the shoes of another?

• How do I begin again, always?

Commit to act on one thing that came up from your reflection time.

You could choose to lean into an area of further learning.  You might seek out a spiritual director, a therapist, or a doctor. You might discover your strengths and charisms as way to nurture your vocation and meet the deepest needs of your ministry and the world.  You might reach out to a coach for guidance. Do a retreat. Take time away, maybe a walk, to be with the Lord and step onto the path of wisdom. You might want to worship or fold your hands and say “thank you” to someone.

Thriving is Resiliency

Ancient spiritual practices should send us back into the world so that we can continue our work with greater compassion and understanding towards those we serve. Here are research results for practicing resiliency—including prayer practices, paying attention, mindfulness, showing up for friendship and community, appreciation, and balanced workload.

The workplace can be a bumpy ride. Even in the Church. Other people can be disappointing, uncaring, or hostile—and sometimes even worse. Understandably, we have reactions to all these things. What to do? There are two options. One is to do nothing, and just be triggered, hijacked, flooded, or frozen. I’ve been there, more times than I want to admit. The other option is to practice with your thoughts and feelings, desires and actions. This means stepping back from them, rather than being swept away by them, and gradually nudging them in a better direction. This chart depicts the impact of positive practices for mindfulness, resilience, and good health lower on reducing anxiety, burnout symptoms, and stress.

Reflections on the First Pastoral Visit with Bishop Neary

November 2023 saw the inaugural Pastoral Visit with Bishop Neary. Over the coming months, Bishop Neary will visit each of the 29 Area Catholic Communities (ACCs) in the Diocese of St. Cloud. This month, three ACCs joined Bishop Neary and other pastoral leaders: Harvest of Hope (Albany, Avon, St. Anthony, St. Martin), Northern Cross (Butler, Dent, Perham Rush Lake and One in Faith (Freeport, Greenwald, Meire Grove, Melrose, New Munich, Spring Hill, St. Rosa). 

The Pastoral Visit Goals:

To build bridges for a thriving mission across parishes in an ACC. 

To develop ACCs as learning communities through listening and dialogue. 

To offer radical hospitality to nurture relationships between Bishop Neary, the diocesan staff and ACC pastoral leadership. 

Bishop Neary's Six Priorities

We began our morning at the Cathedral of Saint Mary with Bishop Neary’s opening remarks and six priorities, a video presentation on Bridge-Builders for a Thriving Mission and the Celebration of the Eucharist. Bishop Neary’s six priorities (in no particular order) are:  thrivingmission.org

1. The well-being, support and enrichment of the diocesan pastoral team.

2. Care for the priests of the diocese

3. Seeing synodality as a model for the Church and the Diocese of Saint Cloud

4. Eucharistic Revival in the Diocese of Saint Cloud

5. The Latino presence in the Diocese of Saint Cloud

6. Strategic planning for the next phase of our ACCs

In the afternoon, each ACC presented their story in 20–30-minute segments. To view the ACC PowerPoints, visit: www.thrivingmission.org.

Each ACC One Activity that Communites Have Shared. For example . . .

Harvest of Hope: BINGO post-pandemic.  The parishes rotated hosting BINGO and it has generated a sense of community. They also introduced trivia questions about each parish to strengthen a sense of community history.

Northern Cross: Deacon Mark Stenger’s fundraiser, and Chubby Sunday which is a soup and chili cooking contest.

One in Faith: Nurturing a Eucharistic Spirituality such as Divine Mercy Sunday, outdoor Assumption Mass with Bishop Neary, Corpus Christi procession.

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What are people saying about our day together?

"The best part was the personal interaction and discussions with Bishop Neary . . ."

Honestly, the entire day was wonderful! The best part for me was the personal interaction and discussions with Bishop Neary, the diocesan staff, and the people from the other ACCs present.

"Interesting that some issues were common to all . . ."

"It really opened our eyes . . ."

"It gave us a chance to recall the value of our work together . . ."

"Bishop Neary is very personable . . ."

Summary of Strengths and Challenges

Strengths	Challenges
People:  Sense of community, volunteerism, strong faith	Lack of faith involvement and Mass attendance
People seem to bounce around the parishes comfortably	Communication, communication, communication
An example of early wins at Harvest of Hope: Early success - Rural Life Celebration Separate but unified faith formation programs: this year share a common theme. Common Confirmation standards Sacramental Preparation (Baptism, Weddings) Shared funeral resources	Fear of losing parish identity… dissolving parish councils a concern for people.
Catholic Schools	Finding new volunteers… the same people always seem to step up.
Beginning to see the value of shared events	Rotating clergy every weekend can create a sense of inconsistency.
Strengthening ACC identity	Energy devoted to pastoral care with multiple parishes.

Synodal Listening

We ended the day with a synodal listening process with mixed groups from the different ACCs. We asked two questions: What is the Holy Spirit calling the Church in Central Minnesota to? How can we strengthen co-responsibility for the mission? (Spoiler alert: it seems some people did not understand this question, and we will adjust the question for our next Pastoral Visit). Below is a summary:

• Bring more joy to our ACCs.  Get out of our comfort zone and be disciples.

• Welcome and invite those who are ‘hanging around’ or lost at the margins.

• Frustration with the diocese and understanding the vision of ACCs.

• A strong call for more formation in the teachings and rules of the faith, a desire to hold on to tradition.

• A call for clarity and boldness in leadership — leadership that offers clear answers and guidance to people.

• We still need to tackle evangelization and ministry with our Hispanic people.

• I am from an ACC with 2 pastors. It is confirmed to me at this meeting, for the ACC model to work well, each ACC needs to have 1 pastor with parochial vicars under them.

• Encourage the diocese to communicate with the ACC, rather than individual parishes.  This will reflect the ACC structure.

Postscript

The Pastoral Visits with Bishop Neary were coordinated by Brenda Kresky, Director, Planning Office and Barbara Sutton, Director, Bridge-Builders for a Thriving Mission. We are genuinely grateful for the efforts and commitments of these Area Catholic Communities. They are designed so that we might all be a learning community, month after month. Learning together equips us to be stewards of the mission and better able to serve one another. This was our first and the evaluations concur with what we felt, that this is a wonderful and hospitable opportunity to expand our ministry. There are still some wrinkles to iron out in our day, and we appreciate the feedback such as timing of sessions, awkward transitions, making theological language accessible, better sound system, and the sun in our eyes! Blessings on this Advent season.

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