St. John the Baptist parishioners commit to Reclaiming Sundays initiative

Parishioners at St. John the Baptist in Savage have begun participating in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Reclaiming Sundays initiative by making monthly spiritual commitments. Father Bobby Pish and the parish Synod Evangelization Team integrated the program into the church's monthly Fellowship Weekends, also known as donut Sundays, starting in September 2025.

To move beyond simple information sharing, the parish allows people to select a specific practice from the monthly theme and take home a challenge card. For the September focus on prayer habits, parishioners chose activities such as regular Mass attendance, preparing for Mass in advance, Eucharistic adoration, or evening prayer.

Volunteer Julie McNally, a member of the Synod Evangelization Team, helped implement a visual display in the parish atrium to track these commitments. For the September theme, families wrote their names on paper apples and placed them on the display. This method was inspired by a similar practice used during the COVID-19 pandemic, when families used paper snowflakes. The atrium display changes every month to match the liturgical season and the specific Reclaiming Sundays theme.