Meet our Pastoral Council

2021-2022 Members

Nate Witt, President
Dean Baumert
Fr. Dave Belt
Julie Christiansen
Doug Evans
Meaghan Geraghty
Bob Homan
Jeff Kovar
Brian Langel
Tom McLaughlin
Sue Miller
Chris Osterloh
Andrew White
Adam Ybarra

Do you know about the role and priorities of our Pastoral Council?

The three-fold role of the Pastoral Council is investigating (studying), reflecting (praying), and recommending (deciding). While it isn’t a legislative body or a board of directors, its primary work is to “help the Pastor think” and to prayerfully consider how our parish is called to be faithful to the Gospel and to our mission statement—Saint Stephen the Martyr Catholic Church is a community for all to encounter Christ, know Christ, and to proclaim Christ. Alongside the work of the Council, the role of staff is to “help the pastor do” and to implement the recommendations that come from the Pastoral Council.

The Council is vital to the strategic planning process to further the mission of our church community. It has an active and primary role in listening to parishioners, doing research into best practices and trends in the community, archdiocese, and Church, and being advocates in our community regarding our mission and our ministry. The Pastoral Council, along with the Leadership Team of the staff and the Finance Council, are the pastor’s primary advisory groups. The pastor counts on these and all advisory boards of the parish to give honest, prayerful, informed advice.


Over the next year (2021-2022), the Pastoral Council and staff will be working on four goals:
1. To deepen and enrich the personal and communal prayer lives of parish leaders.
2. To assist all parish leaders to prepare and to share a brief witness about why Saint Stephen the Martyr Catholic Church exists.
3. To focus on equipping parish leaders to be missionary disciples.
4. To update our Pastoral Plan (approved in 2019) to ensure that our focus is to “meet people where they are” on their journey of life; and to form faithful, generous, active missionary disciples.


View Pastoral Council Documents:

Pastoral Plan Executive Summary_June 2019
Pastoral Plan (Full)_June 2019
2021 PC Q&A
PC Minutes_June 2020
PC Minutes_April 2020
PC Minutes_August 2019
PC Minutes_June 2019
PC Minutes_July 2019
PC Minutes_April 2019
SSM 2019 Pastoral Council Guidelines Final


Questions? 

Contact Nate Witt at (402) 599-9953.