St. Thomas More Parish Journey
On July 1, 1997 Father James Turner was appointed by Bishop Thomas O’Brien as founding pastor of the new parish planned in Glendale. In deciding what to name the new parish, Father Turner felt St. Thomas More would be appropriate since it was located on Utopia Road. While awaiting the completion of the local elementary school where weekend masses would be held, daily masses were held in potential parishioners homes with groups of neighbors in order to spread the word about the new parish. This would continue until a temporary building is placed on the church property.
The first weekend masses were celebrated on Saturday, October 4 and Sunday, October 5 at Copper Creek Elementary School with approximately 200 families attending. By November a full pre-school thru adult Christian Formation program was up and running thanks to Judy Casar (Rogers) the new Pastoral Associate. Also in November Roy Drapeau was ordained Deacon by Bishop O’Brien and assigned to St. Thomas More.
The sacraments of First Communion, Reconciliation and Confirmation were celebrated in May 1998. In June a parish building committee was formed and the process began to explore the idea of building a permanent church. Father Turner strongly felt that a church should be built first rather than a multipurpose building and the building committee and parishioners agreed. In August a modular building was placed on the parish property to become the office and multi-purpose room/chapel and daily mass was now celebrated in the modular building. In March 1999 the first Capital Campaign “Building for Tomorrow” begins to raise funds for the construction of the facilities. The plan was to construct a church and an office building to house a growing staff. At this time there are about 900 families registered in the parish so the need for additional staff is increasing.
Fr. Bob Krajicek joined the Pastoral Team as a regular Sunday Presider in May 2000 and in November Keith Davis was ordained Deacon by Bishop O’Brien and assigned to St. Thomas More.
The plans for the church are approved by the Diocesan Building Commission and Bishop O’Brien in July 2001 and active construction begins on December 28. A beam signing party was held in May 2002 where dozens of parish members sign their names and write prayers on the steel support beam that now forms the entrance into the church.
On November 1, 2002 the parish office moved into the new Administration Building and the modular building was moved to the site across from the office so that it could still be utilized as a meeting space and also house the St. Vincent de Paul pantry. On December 12 the first weekend mass was held in the new church building despite the fact that parts of it were still under construction. On February 1, 2003 the Solemn Rite of Dedication of the new church and altar was celebrated by the parish community with Bishop Thomas O’Brien presiding.
For the next several years the membership continued to grow and more ministries were added to serve the community. By 2006 it became evident that there was an urgent need for more meeting space as well as space to provide social opportunities for the now 3000 families registered in the parish. Christian Formation classes are being held at a local elementary school and as the number of students in the program increased it became more difficult to hold our classes away from the church property. The Finance Committee begins planning how to raise funds to construct a Parish Hall and classroom building. They felt strongly that we should not have a capital campaign so they devised a budget that allowed for funds to be placed in a savings account each month and to supplement this with major fund raising events. This plan would continue until there was enough money to pay for the construction.
Approval was given by Bishop Thomas Olmsted and the Diocesan Building Commission in August 2007 to begin construction on the Parish Hall. At this writing, August 2008, the new building is 85% complete and the expected move in date is October 1.