Wandering parish closer to permanent home

For a small congregation, San Lorenzo Ruiz has a big ambition: to have its own geographic parish. For the past 19 years, about 80 worshippers in this Filipino mission parish have floated from one church to another—they currently worship at St. Simon the Apostle, Bloor Street.

The Rev. Ariel Dumaran, incumbent, describes their plight in biblical terms. “We’re like wandering Jews in the wilderness,” he says. “We’re like a tabernacle and, hopefully, we’ll have a temple.”

Now, thanks to the Our Faith- Our Hope campaign, that hope is closer to reality. The congregation was given a target goal of $45,000 and has now raised $131,000, with more pledges to come. The parish has some arrears with the diocese, which will be paid; then it will start saving money for expansion.

As the campaign began, Mr. Dumaran first talked to his two churchwardens and persuaded them to become involved for the future of the parish. “We’re growing in our ministry but we’re restricted because we gather for only six hours on Sunday,” he says. “We want to expand our work.”

He made the first pledge, then the churchwardens followed suit. Then the parish’s advisory board volunteered to work on the campaign and made their pledges.

Within the first month, 30 parishioners had carried San Lorenzo Ruiz to its target goal.

Then the volunteers followed up with the remaining members of the congregation, phoning and sending them letters. Every Sunday, Mr. Dumaran devoted half of his homily to the campaign, and concluded by asking the worshippers to fill in their pledge cards.

There had been some refusals, with people fearing that a donation to the campaign will lessen their donations in their regular envelope giving. But once they heard that the target was being exceeded and that 75 per cent of the additional funds raised will come back to the parish, enthusiasm grew.

Mr. Dumaran says that even though Our Faith-Our Hope is ending in his parish, his congregation will continue its fundraising, building on the seed money that has been generated.

He says Our Faith-Our Hope has had an even more important impact on the parish. San Lorenzo Ruiz has never held this type of pledge campaign before and it will have a positive effect on the other areas of its stewardship, such as envelope giving and the commitment to volunteerism. “People have been made aware of the need and the desire to achieve,” he says.