TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
September 21, 2003

People are very excited with the painting of the interior of our church. Nobody is missing the black stripes that ran up and down the walls. If everything went as planned this past week all of the painting supplies should be gone and life getting back to a normal routine in the building. It is amazing how bright and large our church has become thanks to everyone’s continued generosity.

You may have seen our parish mentioned on page 3 in the South Hill Record Star dated September 11. The article entitled, “Church can save hearts along with souls,” explains that St. Elizabeth will be receiving an auto external defibrillator (AED) to help save the lives of those who suddenly suffer from cardiac trauma. St. Elizabeth may be first on the list, but we are second, along with our borough building. Curt Neill called me this past summer asking if we would be interested in having the donated equipment available for our parishioners during worship, and without hesitation I said YES. In the future, individuals in our parish, especially our ushers, will be taking part in training to use the AED. We are grateful to Greta Hlivko for the funds that she has made available to the Baldwin EMS for us to be able to benefit from this life-saving technology. This is her way of honoring the memory of her husband who suffered a fatal heart attack several years ago.

In this bulletin you will find an insert describing the responsibilities of each of our professional staff positions: Pastoral Associate, Director of Music & Liturgical Ministries, Youth & Young Adult Minister, and Religious Education Program Coordinator. Please take the time to read them over to see how these positions greatly enrich the ministry and overall life of our parish.

In addition to the different liturgical ministries (like usher, lector, musician & Eucharistic minister) and other organizations for adults to participate in, adult presence and participation in Middle School Ministry and High School Youth Ministry is critical for program content, mentoring and chaperoning (to name a few) to actually happen. Without the adults, programming for youth will get bogged down and not be able to move past the planning stages. Our youth are all of our responsibility.

As we move forth in ministry we continue being...