Catholic Charities welcomes Kremer

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Kremer

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WORTHINGTON — When Lisa Kremer decided to pursue a degree in theology, she wasn’t sure what she would do with it, but knew it was her calling.

“God has foresight,” she reflected. “All I can see is hindsight.”

But Kremer is putting her education to use as the new parish social ministry coordinator at the Catholic Charities office, 1234 Oxford St., in Worthington. She started the job part-time at the beginning of April, finishing up her obligations as the Faith Formation director at St. Gabriel’s Church in Fulda, and went full-time the beginning of June.

“My job is to work with the communities and parishes in the Worthington Deanery of the Diocese of Winona, which includes a six-county area and 22 parishes,” she explained. “My hopes are to work with the parishes to meet their social ministry needs, which vary from parish to parish, because every community is different. In Worthington, there are more issues connected to homelessness, poverty, and in the smaller communities, it’s more about how do we witness to our town. Part of my goal is to visit with each of the communities to find out what they see as their most important social ministry needs.”

The job seems to be a perfect fit for Kremer’s educational background and personal interests. She grew up Lutheran and came into the Catholic Church in 1996.

“As I began to study Catholicism, I discovered the Catholic social teachings and found myself especially drawn into the social ministry aspects of our faith,” she explained.

A native of Avoca, Kremer moved out of the area for about 10 years. She now lives on a farm south of Iona and is married with three children. She actually pursued her undergraduate degree as a non-traditional student.

“I started college right out of high school, and life got in the way,” she explained. “I didn’t get my undergraduate degree (in theology) until I was almost 40, then I went and got a master’s degree from Viterbo College in LaCrosse, Wis. It’s in servant leadership — the only program we know of in that. It’s a fun program, because it was not just people in the church, although it’s a Catholic university, but servant leadership is catching on in all walks of life. There were nurses, businesspeople, even people who weren’t even Christian. The whole idea is to lead in a way where people are valued as clients, but also as employees. It includes community building, peace and justice studies, theological reflections.”

After four years in youth and campus ministry at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall, Kremer more recently has worked with the Faith Formation programs at both St. Mary’s in Worthington and St. Gabriel’s.

At the Catholic Charities office, Kremer is following in the footsteps of Nichole Paladie, who left the position at the end of 2009 and has moved “back home” to St. Charles. Paladie was also involved in some ecumenical efforts, such as Love In the Name of Christ, and Kremer will continue to support those endeavors.

“Those of us who knew and worked with Nichole enjoyed the energy and enthusiasm that she brought to her ministry,” reflected Kremer in the Catholic Charities newsletter. “She was involved in some wonderful things, and many of them we will be working to continue and to grow as we reassess needs in the various communities. God has good things in store!”

While Paladie laid the groundwork for many of the social ministry programs in the area, Kremer hopes to leave her own mark in living up to the mission statement of the Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Winona:

In the light of our diocesan mission, striving to see as God sees, Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Winona commits to mirror God to the world as Liberator of the oppressed and Defender of the poor. Scripture says, “God made them in God’s likeness.” Hence, to grow in the divine image is the fulfillment of our human purpose and longing. Together, then, we labor to serve all people and make conditions of our Minnesota heartland more fully Human: by calling people to minister to each other, by sharing our resources with each individual and the total community, by reaching out to the disabled, the marginalized, the alienated, the stranger, and by laboring for the justice which the gospel of Christ demands. Through this, we shall die and rise with Him. For, in the end, the greatest gift is Love.

The Catholic Charities office in Worthington offers counseling, including family, individual, pregnancy and adoption services, and also provides information on how and where to get help for a wide variety of problems. But Kremer sees her role as parish social ministry coordinator as “being out in the community.”

“Finding resources for people is a lot of what I’ll be doing, but it’s also educational,” she said. “The Catholic church has specific (guidelines) about how to do social ministry, and my job is to make sure folks are educated as far as what those are.

“I’m also a Secular Franciscan,” Kremer added, “which is an order specifically for lay people. It was founded by St. Francis himself, he wrote the rule. People from all walks of life would come to him and say, ‘We want to follow you, too, but we can’t leave our homes, our families.’ It’s all about peace and justice and simplicity, and it’s very much a part of who I am, that Franciscan spirituality.”

In conjunction with her former ministries, Kremer has taken several “awareness trips” to Central America, and she has a special interest in the social ministry needs of the local immigrant populations.

“It’s been my pleasure to travel to both Mexico and Guatemala and to work with people there, and because of those experiences I am very concerned about the issues that our immigrants face. I have worked with the elderly, as well as youth and children, so each of their specific challenges are important to me,” she explained.

“Besides helping people get the help they need, we also work to change our society and to be a ‘voice for the voiceless,’” Kremer explained further. “In that vein, I have agreed to be the JRLC (Joint Religious Legislative Coalition) representative for District 22 in Minnesota. This organization is comprised of people of different faith traditions working together to advocate for public policies that protect the vulnerable and powerless. I am also very interested in advocating for comprehensive immigration reform — something the U.S. and Minnesota Catholic bishops have taken a strong stand on.”

With only a couple of months on the job, Kremer is still trying to define her role and appreciates input from the people she has been tasked to serve.

“Now, I’m looking forward to learning and growing together with you and the faith communities of our area as we work with one another in meeting the needs of our people here in our area and beyond, and as we grow together in our understanding of the social mission of the church,” she concluded.

Lisa Kremer can be contacted through the Catholic Charities office, 376-9757; e-mail lkremer@ccwinona.org.

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