Kids enjoy the pumpkin craft project during the popular Fall Festival at Holy Spirit Parish in Sioux Falls.
By Julie Wieseman
Every Catholic parish wants to serve its parishioners and draw more people to the heart of God through the community. But how do we do that? That is a good question!
In summer 2023, Father James Mason, pastor of the parishes of the Good Shepherd Pastorate (including Holy Spirit, Sioux Falls and St. Dominic, Canton), began a collaboration with Communio, a nonprofit ministry that trains and equips churches to share the Gospel through the renewal of healthy relationships, marriages and the family. The work with Communio began just as Set Ablaze was rolling out, so much of the focus was on Holy Spirit, given its size within the diocese.
Father Mason’s vision was to tie the Sioux Falls area’s burgeoning growth with the opportunity to reach outside of pastorate members to create a welcoming community where new members feel a sense of belonging through a relationship with Jesus Christ and fellow parishioners. Simply stated, the vision is: “To bring souls to Jesus Christ through strong marriages, relationships and families.”
At that same time, I was retiring early from a career in the professional services industry, and Father Mason hired me as the director of evangelization and discipleship for the pastorate. My primary focus was to be the liaison with Communio and to bring the relationship ministry vision to fruition. I immediately understood that I was but an instrument in what the Holy Spirit had planned for the pastorate.
With an already strong foundation of stewardship, over the past three years of working with Communio, a palpable energy is present at Holy Spirit. The fruits of the Holy Spirit’s work became most clear to me during Palm Sunday 2026.
At the 9 a.m. Mass, the attendees process into the church after a blessing of the palms. I was standing just inside the entrance as the procession began and was overwhelmed by the beautiful young families (several mothers carrying newborns), expectant mothers, the young adults and the empty nesters who had joined Holy Spirit to help care for their grandchildren. These individuals were the true witnesses of the power of strong relationships. Many had volunteered and/or participated in the relationship ministry activities to create a welcoming environment for those seeking a relationship with Jesus.
Communio provided a framework, tools and support to start building the relationship ministry. A recurring process of analyze, plan, implement and review allowed for continuous improvement and gave the Good Shepherd Pastorate access to data on the effectiveness of the relationship ministry to allow for changes, if needed.
ANALYZE
First we needed data. Insight on the relationship health quality of Holy Spirit’s single, engaged and married Mass attendees, as well as those in the surrounding community, was gathered through an internal survey and publicly available data.
The survey results provided insight into which relationship areas to initially focus on, with married and single individuals rising to the top.
PLAN
Because strong families are the engine of healthy discipleship, productive outreach and generational growth, Holy Spirit’s partnership with Communio began with designing a comprehensive, data-informed ministry plan to achieve measurable outcomes around church growth and on restoring relationships. This is done by building community and relationship skills through Communio’s proven program.
The program begins with extending a broad-reaching invitation to outreach activities that help disciple others. Then activities move into smaller ongoing engagement gatherings for attendees to build communities. Ultimately, growth journey activities deliver skills/spiritual-based relationship education content. This final stage is where individuals and couples learn to apply skills that can transform marriages and relationships.
Under Communio’s guidance, we set two three-year targets. The growth-focused goal was to increase average weekly Mass attendance from 2,033 to 2,399 by June 2026. The relationship-focused goal was to normalize relationship enrichment by going from 0 to 990 individual completions of spiritual/skills-based relationship ministry by the end of the agreement with Communio—June 2026.
IMPLEMENT
Over the past three years, we have planned and executed 49 relationship ministry activities: six outreach activities with over 8,500 estimated attendees, of whom nearly 40 percent were non-members; 24 ongoing engagement events with total attendance in excess of 2,000; and 19 growth journey events with nearly 900 attendees. Holy Spirit specifically, had a focus to become a hub for marital and relationship health, and to turn the tide of loneliness, decline in faith, unhappiness and ineffectiveness.
OUTREACH
The Fall Festival and the Family-Friendly New Year’s Eve have become the pillars of outreach within Holy Spirit and the surrounding community. The first Fall Festival was held in September 2023 and has grown to attract an estimated 2,300 attendees in 2025. Feedback from an attendee noted “I felt like [the festival] helped bring my family closer together and bring us closer to the church.”
ONGOING ENGAGEMENT
More intimate ongoing engagement gatherings are to welcome all and build community. The activities span families to young adults with All Saints’ Day Celebration, Cana dinner and dance, and young adult Pints with the Priests. An exciting example of community forming is found in a recent date night that included dinner followed by a panel discussion with couples in various stages of marriage. The attendees ranged from engaged to seasoned couples.
GROWTH JOURNEY
Holy Spirit is committed to creating space to develop healthy relational connections by delivering skills/spiritual-based relationship education content for single, engaged and married individuals. Married couples attended EverMore in Love, a two-day retreat. One attendee described the retreat as “Life changing! It was a literal blessing from God for our marriage.” Another said, “[The retreat] showed me real hope for our marriage …”
REVIEW
As the three-year engagement between Holy Spirit and Communio concludes, the fruits of the vision to bring souls to Jesus through strong, healthy relationships are found not only in metrics, but also in the feeling of the Holy Spirit at work within the Church.
By the numbers, a steady growth at Holy Spirit is seen in Mass attendance, with an increased average weekly Mass attendance of 2,422 (May 2026) from 2,033—exceeding the three-year target of 2,399. Since 2024, approximately 56 new members have been welcomed each week. In 2021, 1,800 families were members, where today the number is approaching 2,300. From a sacramental view, Baptisms grew from 45 in 2023 to 110 in 2025, an average of 25 marriages per year were performed from 2023 to 2025, and the number of individuals who joined the faith in 2026 totaled 92.
Admittedly, the upward trend in attendance, registrations and sacraments has many factors contributing to growth. What is a direct result of the Communio relationship is that nearly 900 individuals received skills/spiritual-based relationship education content, which has armed individuals and couples with skills to transform relationships.
Community among current Holy Spirit members has been reinvigorated with a spirit of service. While Communio has provided a framework for the pastorate’s relationship ministry vision, it is the Holy Spirit guiding the pastor, staff, volunteers and participants who will chart the course for the ongoing journey.
