Dunkirk/Fredonia parishes make strides on the Road to Renewal

People traveling on the Road to Renewal might want to set their GPS to the Dunkirk/Fredonia area, as Family #3 has something worth checking out.

“The Lord’s Vineyard,” as they call themselves, consists of six parishes and eight churches in Northern Chautauqua County. The name plays off the many vineyards in the area and John 15:5 from Scripture.

“We wanted to go off the theme of ‘I am the vine. You are the branches,’” explained Father Robert J. Owczarzak, pastor of the family.

The organizational process has been going well for the family. Just nine months after Father Owczarzak became pastor, the family has a draft of their Family Action Plan which lays out the goals for the next three years. This plan is a compilation of the work of all six pillar groups and is made with the input of clergy and lay people.

“We centralized an office (St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Dunkirk). So, we took all of our employees from our local office, and those who wanted to stay on, stayed on. A couple of them retired. We brought them all together and we’re working as a community,” Father Owczarczak explained.

They also created a single family bulletin and a family website (www.thelordsvineyard3.com)  with input from all the six parishes. They’re now starting to have joint Masses together.

“We had a Thanksgiving Mass at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton where people from every single parish came together and brought food for the poor. We bought loaves of bread for everyone and blessed those for everyone to take home,” Father Owczarzak said.

Renee Sperry, who hails from Jamestown, helps the leadership team in the role of coach mentor. In this role, she helps to guide the pastors of the families. She mainly serves as a sounding board.

“Father Bob is very independent and he does very well,” Sperry said. They have met to tour the parishes and often bounce ideas off one another. “He has a good head on his shoulders.”

Sperry also seeks out tools to help deal with issues as they present themselves. One project was organizing the information on the six cemeteries the family now oversees. Once the family developed its Central Office to handle the administrative business, Sperry contacted the Diocesan Cemeteries office and asked what programs they used to keep their grounds in order. She then brought that information to Father Owczarczak, as well as Father Darryl Duffy, pastor of her parish in Family #4, and Father Todd Remick, the vicar forane of the Southern Tier West vicariate. Now the cemetery information is streamlined and graves are easier to find.

Sperry, who began working with the diocesan Renewal team during the pilot phase of the program, notes that each family has a different dynamic, but one common factor is the apprehension of both parishioners and staff when it comes to change.

“When it comes to change, it’s important that the pastors and the priests are on the same page. That’s what I try to express to the pastors,” she said. “Even if you disagree, you want to be positive when you go out there because it’s unsettling to people when there’s change in their lives.” 

Sperry adds that parish families should be well on their way in the process within six months, “but it’s going to take another year or two to really have it to where it’s settled.”

Father Owczarczak advises prayer during the difficult period of adjustment.

“It can be very defeating sometimes because I believe a lot of pastors are in a no-win situation. No matter what decision they’re going to make will make someone upset. So, you have to really offer it up in prayer and listen to your heart and listen to the Holy Spirit to give you the best advice, because there is no way of pleasing everybody. Everything you do should be through prayer and asking God to guide you for His will to be done, not ours.”