On October 16, 2010, Archbishop John Nienstedt announced that the parishes of St. John the Evangelist in Hopkins and St. Joseph in Hopkins would "cluster to potential merger," meaning that we would share a pastor between the two parishes (cluster) and work towards one day becoming a single parish (merger). This process will happen gradually, with incremental steps of collaboration. Below is a timeline of our progress.


January 2012
Together, the parishes form a task force to help prepare a report to give to the archbishop. This report will detail the pros and cons of each site being the eventual home of our merged parish.

December 2011
Both parishes include the other's ministries in their Stewardship Renewal Drive, encouraging parishioners to use their talents at both parishes.

November 2, 2011
We celebrate a joint All Souls Day Memorial Mass at St. John's for those who have died at either parish in the past year. The BeFrienders of St. Joseph's provide hospitality afterwards. The evening went extremely well.

October 15, 2011
The archdiocese issues a status report on the Strategic Plan for all the parishes of the archdiocese. The status of St. John's and St. Joseph's is modified to "cluster to eventual merger," to clarify that we will eventually merge one parish into the other.

October 2, 2011
Our combined faith formation program and RCIA program begin. Classes meet at St. John's for the first half of the year, and at St. Joseph's for the second half of the year.

July 23, 2011
The new weekend Mass schedule begins.

July 9/10 and 16/17, 2011
Each parish takes a turn canceling their weekend Masses and attending Mass at the other parish. Each parish hosts an open house afterwards, inviting their guests to get to know the campus. It also gives everyone a "peek into the future," to experience what it is like when we all worship together at one church.

July 2, 2011
Chuck Romportl, the director of faith formation at St. Joseph's, starts his job as director of faith formation of St. John's, as well. A series of meetings with both parishes are scheduled to help decide how the new combined program will work.

July 1, 2011
The two parishes are officially clustered.

June 19, 2011
The new Mass schedule is set, to start the weekend of July 23.

May 24, 2011
The parish pastoral councils of both parishes meet with Fr. Liekhus to discuss changing the Mass schedule to accomodate sharing a pastor. They design a survey to hand out at all the Masses at both parishes the first two weekends of June. The daily Mass schedule is set.

May 14, 2011
Archbishop Nienstedt appoints Fr. Jim Liekhus as pastor of both St. John the Evangelist and St. Joseph. Fr. Jerry Dvorak is appointed pastor of St. Peter's in Richfield. Both assignments are effective July 1, 2011.

February 5, 2011
The 10th grade confirmation classes of St. John's and St. Joe's go on retreat together to prepare for confirmation on April 9.

January 19, 2011
The 7th and 8th grade faith formation class of St. John's combines with the faith formation class of St. Joe's.

January 13, 2011
It is confirmed that our two parishes will begin sharing a pastor in July, 2011. We will probably know who the pastor will be by mid-April.

December 11, 2010
The ACCL (A Community Caring for Life) groups from each parish reach out to each other and form one group.

November 21, 2010
Each parish begins to publicize the other's events in their bulletins. St. John's adds two pages to its bulletin, and dedicates one of them to publicizing events at St. Joseph's.

November 8, 2010
Scottie Bahr, the part-time business administrator of St. Joseph's, leaves to start a full-time job as business administrator at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Saint Paul. Brook Sullivan, the full-time business administrator of St. John's, becomes part-time business administrator of St. John's and part-time business administrator of St. Joseph's. Mary Fran Karanikolas, part-time administrative assistant of St. John's, becomes a full-time employee of St. John's and takes over some of Brook's duties.

October 16, 2010
Archbishop Nienstedt announces that St. John's and St. Joseph's will cluster to potential merger. Probably in June 2011, one pastor will be assigned to both parishes.

June 2010
After analyzing every piece of data and taking all input into account, the Strategic Planning Taskforce makes its recommendations to the archbishop.

April 15, 2010
Priests of Deanery 9 present their recommendations to the Strategic Planning Task Force.

Summer and Fall 2009
The archdiocesan Office of Parish Services facilitates leadership meetings in Deanery 9, and a regional parishioner meeting on October 6, to gather input for the Strategic Planning Task Force’s consideration. Input is also collected via letters, a voicemail hotline, and a web comment form.

May 2009
Priests of Deanery 9, to which St. John's and St. Joseph's belong, begin meetng to draft a proposal to the Strategic Planning Task Force, outlining potential structural changes in our area.

February 2009
Archbishop Nienstedt appoints the Strategic Planning Task Force to gather input, analyze data, and draft recommendatons regarding structural changes and strategic initiatves to further the mission of the Church in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

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