Ministries

Our church has been blessed with numerous talented and committed individuals, who tirelessly support many of the ministries in our church. We thank all those behind our

Religious Education

Our CCD program spans 12 grades, including Pre-K and Kindergarten, and currently serves 217 students. A dedicated team of 45 teachers—both regular and substitute—plays a vital role in the faith formation of our children through their selfless service to the parish community. Notably, 16 of our teachers are young members of our parish Youth Group. To empower our youth teachers, some classes are managed independently by them, without an adult instructor present.

The new teachers participated in three training sessions, with ongoing professional development opportunities provided to all teachers throughout the year. Additionally, all teachers and volunteers completed mandatory Safe Environment training, and all adult volunteers underwent criminal background checks to ensure the safety of our children.

The CCD classes for the 2024-2025 academic year began on August 18th. In addition to CCD, students interested in becoming altar servers received training, and new members are inducted annually. Holy Communion and Confirmation classes are currently in progress, with the sacraments scheduled for administration on March 1st, 2025. We are blessed to have the Rev Sisters leading the formation of our children, whether through Holy Communion classes, altar server training, or regular CCD instruction.

The Catechetical Sunday, Mission Sunday, and All Saints’ Day were celebrated with great enthusiasm and devotion, fostering a sense of community and spiritual growth.

Our students participated actively in the diocesan Bible Quiz (Dei Verbum), and we are eagerly awaiting the list of finalists from the Diocese.

Mr. Jithesh John, our current CCD principal, has provided outstanding leadership to the CCD program over the past four years. With the continued support of parents, our devoted CCD teachers play a crucial role in passing on our faith to the next generation.

PTA

The newly appointed PTA team has supported the CCD program by setting up classrooms by 9:30 AM every Sunday (before the arrival of teachers and students) and coordinating pizza distribution for students. In February 2024, they organized the CCD Talent Competition, showcasing students’ talents with the help of volunteers and judges. To boost participation, the PTA moved the annual Easter Egg Hunt to Palm Sunday, featuring an Easter Bunny and an exciting egg hunt. They supported the CCD Year-End Festival, provided lunch for teachers and PTA members (both new and outgoing). The team also organized an Ice Cream Social, fostering a sense of community and celebration.

Missionary Sisters of
Mary Immaculate (MSMI)

The Missionary Sisters of Mary Immaculate (MSMI) is a women’s religious congregation founded by the late Msgr. C. J. Varkey, inspired by divine guidance from the Holy Spirit, on September 8, 1962, the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The congregation is actively engaged in various apostolates across twenty-five dioceses in India, as well as in four dioceses in Germany, Italy, and the United States, with the mission of spreading the Kingdom of God.

The MSMI Sisters dedicate their charisma primarily to the Family Apostolate, with a special focus on retreats, counseling, and teaching Catechism (CCD) to children and adults. The Sisters emphasize the importance of nurturing and supporting young children, women, and adults by offering spiritual guidance, counsel, and care to help them grow in faith, well-being, and a deeper relationship with God.

Youth Ministry

In 2024, the SJSMCC Tampa youth grew in leadership, fellowship, and faith. The youth coordinators organized various local parish centered youth events throughout the year. This included a baking day, Holyween, and a thanksgiving potluck. The youth held a bake sale fundraiser to contribute to their youth fund. Additionally, the youth hosted events and performed for the wider church community, including a passion play on Good Friday, Light the Fire (A praise and worship night with adoration, dances, skits, and music), and CCD fest. SJSMCC youth are also engaged with youth in the diocese on a regional and national level. Some college youth attended and participated in Qurbana on campus in Gainesville. Young adult youth aged 21-35 attended Summit in Baltimore, Maryland, a conference focused on bringing together the young adults of the diocese. The youth, from elementary to college, also participated in a Sacred Heart Knanaya Catholic Church hosted basketball tournament, including churches from all over Florida. In addition, the youth coordinators attended a regional leadership conference, SPARK, hosted in Charlotte, North Carolina. High school youth leaders of the southeast region gathered to explore the essence of leadership and learn how to take initiative within their communities.

Adult Choir

The church choir is a vital part of our worship experience, providing inspiring music that uplifts our congregation and glorifies God. The choir actively functions with 16 members, spiritually enriching the church and helping people to participate in the Holy Qurbana with devotion. The choir members actively participate in Sunday Masses and every special event of the church. They conduct practice sessions once every month and for special occasions. They also conduct social gatherings occasionally to strengthen the bonding between them where they enjoy the day with good food, music and fun. The church choir remains committed to enriching our worship services and spreading God’s message through Music.

Cherupushpa Mission League (CML)

In 2024, the Cherupushpa Mission League (CML) focused on enhancing mission spirit and spiritual growth among 4th to 8th-grade CCD students. The CML induction ceremony on November 3rd welcomed new members from the 4th and 5th grades and selected office bearers from the 8th grade. During Rosary Month, CML members led the solemn Rosary celebrations. They celebrated Mission Sunday with activities and raised funds for mission projects. Funds from the 2023 Mission Sunday were used for the Feeding the Needy program, donating blankets, and donation to Lumen Vitae, supporting meal programs for students in Haiti. In December, CML members participated in the Diocese’s online Christmas celebration, and 19 members joined the Diocese’s Bible Reading Challenge.

St Vincent de Paul Society

The St. Vincent de Paul (SVdP) Society, established 6 years ago, provides aid to the needy both locally and in India. Members review and approve applications from parishes in India, distributing funds directly to applicants. With generous support from monthly contributions, voluntary work and fundraising events like the Christmas cake sale, food and snack sale, SVdP processed 81 applications in total.

Youth Choir

In 2024, The Youth Choir celebrated the Annual Perunnal Qurbana with Fr. Kevin Mundackal. Additionally, Youth choir members participated in a choir training program aimed at strengthening participant’s abilities in their musical gifts to elevate the celebration of the Holy Qurbana. The program also focused on instilling important qualities such as leadership, creativity, discipline, and problem-solving

Men’s Forum

In 2024, the Men’s Forum fostered community spirit through events like a Mother’s Day celebration with games, gifts, food and a card game competition. They partnered with the Women’s Forum for the Christmas Carol Grand Finale, featuring a decorated tree with gifts, and a raffle. On New Year’s Eve, they managed grilling and fireworks. The forum also contributed to the parish by creating a cricket ground (including ground clearing and financial support from members), supporting Kappa harvesting, setting up hall and stage for Onam and Christmas programs, and helping in preparing food for Easter and Christmas. They made arrangements in the grounds for the “Stations of the Cross” on Good Friday and volunteered in recovery efforts after Hurricane Milton. Their dedication and teamwork strengthened our parish community throughout the year.

Women’s Forum

In 2024, the Women’s Forum organized several engaging events that enriched our community. They celebrated International Women’s Day on March 2nd with talks, discussions, cultural programs, fun games, and snacks. On May 12th, Mother’s Day, they inaugurated the “Feather Friends of SJSMCC” badminton club for ladies. Father’s Day on June 16th featured cultural programs, games, and food. They also arranged Pookalam and Thalapoli for the Onam celebrations on September 21st. A Ladies’ Day Out on October 12th was postponed due to Hurricane Milton. Additionally, they sold custom-made T-shirts to 70 ladies for $10 each. At the Grand Christmas Carol Finale in December, they held a snack sale and partnered with the Men’s Forum for a Christmas tree gifts and raffle sale. The Women’s Forum has become a cornerstone of our parish’s social and cultural life, fostering connection, health, wellness, and teamwork.

Social Achievements

Following are some of the key events connected with social life of the community:

Feeding the Needy

Feeding The Needy ministry provides food, clothing and other household items to the needy people in the neighborhood of the St. Joseph’s Syro Malabar Catholic Church (SJSMCC). Volunteers from the Church and well-wishers of the community collect donations from various donor organizations. Approximately 125 lunch meals are served on Saturdays. SJSMCC started the ministry on August 2, 2013.

Church website & social media

Our church Facebook page is regularly updated with our upcoming programs and photos from current events. Our parish website is also maintained & kept up to date with various details like Qurbana timings, the various ministries, link to the ParishOnNet system, etc.

Parish Calendar

We continue to publish our annual parish calendar every year. This year too, a number of benevolent parishioners actively communicated with Achan and the office, expressing their strong preference for a printed version rather than an online one. We successfully produced the printed 2024 calendar well in advance of Christmas in 2023. We are grateful to the team behind this effort and our sponsors for their generous financial contributions.

ParishOnNet

Following Chicago Dioceses’ guidance, our church migrated parish management to the secure ParishOnNet application in 2023. Since then, we efficiently handled many events, including CCD registrations, Fellowship Lunch Fund, Onam registrations, aiming to make ParishOnNet a central hub for convenient tracking of church contributions. ParishOnNet efficiently manages all member details ensuring smooth coordination and organization within our community.

Web portal for CCD

To make the lives of our CCD teachers a bit easier and to be able to track the students’ progress, we developed a cloud-based application for managing our CCD classes. This application aids teachers in handling attendance, report cards, and teaching resources, while also providing a historical record of students’ progress. This is the first time a parish under Chicago diocese is developing its own web portal for CCD program management. Access to this tool is available at ccd.sjsmcc.net.

Sunday Fellowship Lunch

In April 2023, a new ‘fellowship lunch fund’ was created to provide meals to all parishioners after the Qurbana on Sundays. Lunch will be served to all parishioners as long there is money in the fund. The first donations came from the 2022-23 council members and following that we have been receiving contributions to the fund from generous donors who come forward to express their love for God and commitment to our community at St. Joseph’s by actively donating time and money for these communal meals. We are very grateful to all these thoughtful sponsors.

St. Joseph’s Digest

In response to communication challenges during our parish’s rapid expansion, we launched the weekly pictorial newsletter, “St. Joseph’s Digest,” on June 18th, 2023. By December 31st, 2024, it had reached its 81st edition, becoming a key platform for sharing parish news and fostering community connection. Released every Friday, the newsletter is produced by a dedicated Editorial Board, with members handling content gathering, editing, and quality reviews.

Seniors’ Circle

Senior parishioners (aged 60+ and retired or 65+, with only one member of a couple needing to qualify) formed the “Gather to Become Young” Senior Circle in September 2023, a vibrant group for socializing, sharing ideas, playing, and praying together. Since then, they have met every month. In August 2024, they celebrated their first anniversary, Indian Independence Day, and Onam with a Holy Mass, entertainment, and an Onam Sadya. They organized educational talks on healthy aging, how to manage acidity, senior living, wills and trusts, Medicare, and gardening. Activities include exercise sessions, a book club, dance performances, games, singing, and card-playing. In 2024, special programs included a Toastmasters Youth Leadership initiative and a pilgrimage to Guadalupe.

Safe Environment & Child Protection

As our continued effort to remain as one of the leading parishes in the Safe Environment program, we conducted many Safe Environment training for CCD Kids and all the Volunteers throughout 2023. We are grateful to Mr. Jason Dominic for his consistent support to bring awareness of a safe environment.

Planting of Kappa

In May 2023, under the leadership of Achan, trustees and PC members, around 160 kappa stems were planted on the church grounds. Lots of hard work went into play here with many hardworking volunteers turning up to till the soil and plant the stems, the benefits of which we are reaping this year with a bountiful harvest. (served meals for parishioners on St. Sebastian’s feast and “Pethrutha” Sunday in 2024)

Facility Management

Hall rental rates

With our current hall rental rates – small hall ($600) and large hall ($1200), cleaning charges not included, we rented out the main hall for 6 events and the small hall for 3 events in 2023. As a reminder, there is a discount of 15% available to parishioners, provided the parishioner is a regular “financial” contributor to our church. In 2023, it was decided to include the sound system in the hall rentals at an additional rate of $200, a portion of which is to be paid to the person operating the system, which would be one of our church members. Also, some changes were made to the rental policy which included collecting full amount for the rental one day prior to the actual day of the rental and collecting a caution / damage deposit from the renters.