Parish Council

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What is the Parish Council

Serving as advisers to the Pastor, the Parish Council is a group of parishioners who offer reflections and insights to the Pastor based on listening sessions with parishioners and insights from Catholic teaching and relevant expert testimony. St. Blaise Parish uses a synodal listening model inspired by the Synod on Synodality developed under the leadership of Pope Francis and continued under Pope Leo XIV.

Current Parish Council Members:

  • Laurie Baird
  • Tori Benyo
  • Eric Clark
  • Ryan Clausen
  • Kathie Connor
  • Janet Hynes
  • Tom McGahagan

St. Blaise Parish Plan

St. Blaise Parish, Austintown, Ohio

Goals and Strategies – 2/24/2026

(with commentary on the “Why’s” of the goals)

GOAL: To diversify the membership of St. Blaise

Why this goal?

This goal developed because of parishioners expressing concern that not all groups in Austintown are present in a representative way at St. Blaise. The following statistics show age and race distributions in Austintown. These distributions do not match the membership of St. Blaise. Parishioners want the Church to be a place where all people feel welcome.

Age Distribution in Austintown (Approximate)

  • Under 18: 20.9% (St. Blaise: 12%)
  • 18–24: 9% – 11.9% (St. Blaise: 10.5%)
  • 25–44: 26.9% – 27.3% (St. Blaise: 22.8%)
  • 45–64: 25.5% (St. Blaise: 22.7%)
  • 65 and older: 17.2% – 23% (St. Blaise: 31.8%)

Racial Breakdown of Austintown, OH (approximate percentages):

  • White: 82% – 85%
  • Black or African American: 7% – 9%
  • Two or More Races: 3% – 5%
  • Hispanic or Latino: 2% – 5%
  • Other/Other Race: 0% – 1%
  • Asian: <1% 
  • Make St. Blaise more attractive and meaningful for young adults, whether they are single or married with children
    • Research parishes that are having success with young adults
    • Connect young families with each other to build relationships that could resolve some childcare sharing/bartering during church programs
    • Develop a public service campaign on the value of church for young families
    • More social activities that connect with younger adults
  • Listen to, learn from, and celebrate non-white families/individuals who are currently attending St. Blaise
    • Develop a plan to engage this target audience in conversation about what they find attractive and how the parish can serve them more effectively
    • Host a Taste of St. Blaise event to celebrate all the cultures in the parish
  • Reach out to people who experience social, economic, or other forms of marginalization that lead to them distancing themselves from the church
    • Learn more about the demographics of Austintown in general
    • Develop a hospitality plan for the clients of St. Vincent de Paul and the Food Pantry that could include prayers, a welcome kit, etc.
    • Develop a team to reach out to and build relationships with marginalized communities in Austintown for the purpose of learning about and responding to their spiritual needs
    • Finding ways to express appreciation to populations whose lifestyles are challenging to traditional Catholic thinking (possibly greeting cards to LGBTQ family members of church members and reaching out to those who have no faith or are suspicious of churches in general).
  • Address political tensions present in our society among church members in non-threatening ways that lead to greater understanding and unity
  • Be a sign of unity in diversity by continuing to build bridges between the St. Joseph and the IHM campuses

GOAL: To form well-rounded leaders for all levels of parish ministry

Why this goal?

There is a growing awareness in our society that leaders do not listen adequately to their constituents. There is also a deeply spiritual movement happening in the Catholic Church called synodality, which is a way of being together as a group that is built on the practice of listening. If leaders of ministries at St. Blaise are to be effective, they need to be strong communicators, effective planners, and good listeners.

  • Develop new and varied channels for leaders to communicate to parishioners and provide various ways for parishioners to communicate to leadership.
    • Revamp Parish Council as a listening body in the spirit of synodality
    • Create a question box for anonymous questions. Distribute the questions to the appropriate leader who answers it and communicates it to the whole parish.
    • Host more frequent town hall meetings on issues that matter to parishioners.
    • Develop additional ways to gather parishioners’ opinions on important decisions.
    • Publish a monthly informational newsletter.
  • St. Blaise leadership develops new ways to connect with the Austintown community.
    • Create a community relations team.
  • Develop a leadership formation program.
    • Host an annual retreat for established leaders.
    • Develop an onboarding workshop/process for new ministry leaders.
    • Distribute information about effective leadership practices to leaders regularly.
    • Develop a ministry leader database.

GOAL: To provide age-specific and intergenerational faith formation opportunities for people in all stages of life

Why this goal?

In their 2002 pastoral plan on adult faith formation, “Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us,” the US Bishops lamented the fact that while they have consistently called for adult faith formation to be the center of the church’s religious education efforts, parishes continue to prioritize children and youth programming, forgetting that without well-formed adults, there is no hope that faith will be passed to the next generation. While there has been some progress on adult formation since 2002, there is still much work to be done before we can say that adult faith formation is the central faith formation effort of the parish.

  • Create spaces and experiences that will draw people in who otherwise would not be with us.
    • Host adult faith formation events that feature food, adult beverages, games, gambling, etc.
    • Develop ways to connect faith with various aspects of human experience based on the idea that if something/someone exists, God is interested and the church should be interested, too.
    • Utilize digital communication to reach people who are not physically present to us.
  • Develop faith formation opportunities especially for:
    • Teens
      • (possibly revive a celebrate-style retreat)
        • Do it in a way that helps teens eventually feed into the adult faith community.
        • We need a bridge to the adult faith community and to their everyday lives.
      • Enhance youth participation in adult ministries.
        • Create a youth choir or increase youth participation in the current music groups.
        • Develop youth usher program.
        • Invite more youth to serve as Lectors and Eucharistic Ministers.
      • Create and curate digital resources and deliver them through various digital platforms.
    • Young Adults (single and parents)
      • Deliver faith formation in 1–3-minute chunks, mostly digital.
      • Offer Theology on Tap or something similar.
    • Elderly
      • Encourage the ongoing development of parishioner visitation to nursing homes.
      • Study the characteristics of faith in later stages of life and develop or curate resources to support faith growth among our senior parishioners.

GOAL: To collaborate with individuals and organizations in Austintown to help make Austintown a better place to live and to visit

Why this Goal?

Pope Francis was known for saying that a parish that has an exclusively internal focus is a sick parish. Healthy parishes look outside of themselves and discover ways to engage with the community around them in love and service. Thriving parishes research affirms this outward approach by demonstrating that thriving parishes have a complex network of relationships with individuals and groups that are outside of the parish membership. The mission of a parish is ultimately to the community in which it is placed. As Pope Leo recently asserted, Catholic parishes must welcome everyone, even non-Catholic Christians and people with no faith at all. This goal prompts us to work with everyone in Austintown for the benefit of everyone.

  • Provide services for older citizens
    • Develop an initiative to encourage more neighborly behavior without developing a formal program that requires a lot of hoops to jump through.
    • Assist elderly getting from cars into church when the parking lot has snow/ice.
Parish Planning Team
Synodality