Your Catholic Neighbor
Taking faith to a higher level
Parish director Nesbit continues to grow in faith, in ministries
By Tony Staley
Compass Correspondent
REDGRANITE -- When Karen Nesbit was 12, her Saturdays started at 2 a.m. icing cakes in her father's bakery. She would finish six hours later, then go with a half-dozen classmates from St. Olaf Parish in DeForest to teach religious education to cognitively disabled youth at Central Colony in Madison, followed by Mass.
Those experiences with people, religion and business, Nesbit said, shaped her and now help her as parish director at two Waushara County parishes - St. Mark, Redgranite, and Sacred Heart, Poy Sippi. On April 24 she will finish her first year on the job.
As a parish director, Nesbit oversees parish operations and "empowers people to do what they're good at."
On a recent day, she worked with the religious education director on the calendar for the new year; met with the new environment team; went with Fr. Joseph Mattern, sacramental minister, to anoint two people; and led an evening of prayer in Poy Sippi.
She also does sacramental preparation, started RCIA, offers reflections at Sunday liturgies and works with the parish council, finance council and various parish committees, some of which she started. She notes that participation in Generations of Disciples has increased to 70 people a month.
"We had a parish visioning in each parish," Nesbit said. "They took ownership of themselves and what they did in the past. It was very affirming. They came up with goals that they would like to work on. It was positive and it was their ideas. They came up with new mission statements for each parish."
So how does one go from icing cakes and teaching religious education to cognitively disabled students to being a parish director?
First, Nesbit earned a bachelor's degree in social work, with a minor in business, from UW-Oshkosh. From there, she worked in group homes for chronically mentally ill adults and emotionally disturbed adolescents, as a social worker in a nursing home, as class coordinator at Fox Valley Tech, and as a group home manager.
About 25 years ago Nesbit began teaching seventh grade religious education at St. Mary Parish, Omro. Ten years later, Fr. Mattern asked her take over the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) process.
"I kind of freaked out," Nesbit said. "I said, 'You're nuts. I can't do that. I can't teach adults. I wouldn't know what to do.'" But the invitation came when Nesbit, who by then had her own bakery, was trying to decide what God wanted her to do.
"He sent me on a 'Beginnings and Beyond' and there was the beginning," said Nesbit, who has worked full-time in parishes since.
At the same time, she started in the diocese's Commissioned Ministry Program and found its spirituality element especially enriching. She now teaches liturgy and prayer courses in the program. She also earned a master's degree in theological studies from St. Norbert College.
For the last 15 years, Nesbit has worked in RCIA, religious education and liturgy at St. Mary parishes in Omro and Winneconne and as a pastoral associate at St. Mary Parish, Oshkosh.
"All those experiences helped me achieve who I am today," said Nesbit, who grew up just north of Madison in the Town of Windsor. The DeForest High School graduate cited her parents as the major religious influences in her life, particularly her father. "He is the most open to new things and newness. He's on a spiritual search." He also provided a good example, Nesbit said, by employing cognitively disabled people in the bakery.
A "really religious" grandmother, a couple of great-uncle priests and great-aunt sisters also influenced her, Nesbit said.
Other strong influences were School Sisters of Notre Dame Mary De Cleene and Connie Van Straten, Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet Judy Miller, and Kieran Rozum; plus a nun in second grade who told her, "Heaven is better than anything you could ever imagine." "It stuck with me forever," she said.
But it was a 1988 Marriage Encounter that she and her husband, Ed, went on that profoundly affected her adult faith life. It increased her love for herself, made her aware that God is part of it all and showed her a caring team at work, Nesbit said.
"That was really my first retreat experience and I was almost ticked off that no one had told me about retreats before," Nesbit said. "We had a pretty awesome time - better than my wedding day."
For several years in Omro, Nesbit, who has four children of her own - Chad, Trisha, Joel and Andrew - took high school youth on mission trips with Young Neighbors in Action. They served in impoverished areas in San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis, Omaha and Worcester, Mass.
"We liked to take kids on adventures. It's a great program. We worked hard all week, and learned about Catholic social teaching at night. There's a lot of changing of hearts and deepening of faith," said Nesbit.
She recalled working in a food line feeding thousands of homeless people on that first trip, to the Tenderloin district San Francisco. None of them had ever seen anything like it. "It was really profound to see that this is how some people lived every single day," she said.
Watching the experiences transform the youths gave her hope for the next generation, Nesbit said.
The youth were not the only ones who changed. Nesbit said the trips deepened her own faith, taught her to keep things simple, to have the courage to go forward and to look at what's most important in life.
Nesbit said she also learned to have the right priorities: first, God and the need for prayer as a way to stay connected, grounded and centered in God; then family, friends and her ministry.
As she nears the end of her first year as a parish director, Nesbit said she is struck by all the good and faithful people in Redgranite and Poy Sippi.
"They are people that care," Nesbit said. "They are people that want things done well. There are just a lot of nice people in both parishes."
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