Bishop Thomas Zinkula records a message about the Rediscovering Sunday survey last month at St. Vincent Center in Davenport.
(Editor’s note: Encouraged by continuing response to the Rediscovering Sunday survey, Bishop Thomas Zinkula is extending the survey deadline to Aug. 15. This is his statement about Rediscovering Sunday and the survey.)
Two years ago, delegates from every parish in the Diocese of Davenport gathered for the Vision 20/20 convocation. This convocation created energy and sparked a new fervor for evangelization. The Holy Spirit was truly present with us. Led by the Holy Spirit, we walked away from this gathering with new ideas, goals and dreams for our parishes.
As we returned to our parishes, many new efforts were getting off the ground. Then, the pandemic hit. Efforts were derailed and we lived in a world with many new unknowns. There is still much uncertainty about the future. What we do know, is that we need to invest in our faith communities. So again, we take up the task of evangelization.
Rediscovering Sunday began with a question: “How do we keep holy the Lord’s day?” With the many time commitments to family, school, sports and the many ways that culture draws our attention, we knew this would be a complex and difficult question. Through much conversation, the one question of “How do we keep holy the Lord’s day?” turned into many questions in the form of the Rediscovering Sunday survey. This survey gets to the core of people’s experience of parish life.
To date, more than 4,000 survey responses have been submitted! This is truly remarkable. Three weeks ago, we sent a post card to every mailing address on record in the diocese. You have responded to the call. There is much momentum and much promise behind Rediscovering Sunday. This is because of the care and thoughtfulness with which folks around the diocese have submitted responses.
For this reason, we are giving things one last push. We are extending the original deadline (July 31) to a final deadline of Aug. 15. Please take the survey, available on the diocesan website (https://www.davenportdiocese.org/sunday). I personally hope to hear from you in this survey.
