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The next Spiritual Companion Cohort begins April 2023. Do you have a desire to grow in holiness? Want a deeper prayer life? Do people seek your guidance on spiritual matters? Do you have a desire to help others to grow in holiness? Want to gain a more in-depth knowledge of your Faith? Do you desire to be a son or daughter of the Church? I want to invite you to prayerfully discern if God is asking you to become a CRC Spiritual Companion. 

Know a graduating youth or young adult that is looking for meaningful work? Matter of fact, they do not have to be young (18 or older required)! Just capable of living, working, and serving as a Missionary! The CRC Missionary will live, work, and pray in community. Their position will be focused on serving the mission of the CRC, to draw people into a relationship with Jesus Christ and His Church through retreat ministry. A missionary is someone committed to our Faith, a servants heart, and willingness to do whatever it takes for the mission. Missionaries will do cleaning of spaces, cooking and serving the meals, retreat hospitality for groups, enforcing retreat rules, helping with renovations (painting, landscaping, etc), and some will provide office functions (ordering supplies, retreat booking, etc). We started this program last year and are currently expanding to add two more missionaries. The Missionary serves for a one-year term and can renew for additional years. The Missionary is a well-paid position with benefits and housing living in community (each with their own bedroom). The position also has the ability for advancement in either our office or operations departments.

Thank you for your amazing generosity and recommendations, we were able to remove the old broken mini-blinds inside Oblate Hall and replaced them with nice blackout drapes! This project was totally funded in 3-days through our social media campaign. THANK YOU!!! The groups that have used have already sung praises for the look as well as functionality.

In 2022, our goal is to renovate the Chapel. This renovation includes replacing the AC unit (required before the summer heat), installing Stain Glass Window Film like what was installed in Marian Hall, redoing our pews, creating a center aisle, new flooring, and increasing seating capacity to 200 people. Our target is to be around $100,000. Currently, we are selling Stain Glass Window Films for the Chapel.

Join us for the grand reveal on March 24. Entire Renovation completed by CRC Staff and Volunteers for under $50,000!!!! This includes a new roof, exterior siding, windows, flooring, wheelchair-accessible restrooms, removing old wood paneling, and the Stain Glass Window designs!!!!

We really need to replace the blinds at Oblate Hall. Cosmetically they look bad, about 1/3 are being held together by safety pins, as well as groups complain about them allowing light in. We have 20 windows in Oblate that need replacement. We would like to do the 2-inch faux blinds that we have been doing throughout the property. There is a sale that expires on March 2nd. Our goal is to raise enough funds by March 1st to order. The cost for the 20 blinds is $2,808.55 with the 35% coupon. Previously you can see we hung 2 blinds for a single-window since the long blinds for a window cost too much when being installed.

We have a holy contest to see which will be the first rooms to get fully funded in 2022. Take a look at the various Saints we are looking to have a room named after. For each room, we need to raise $7,917.

Register for the upcoming GRN Prayer Breakfast: FEBRUARY 3 (THURSDAY) 7AM TO 9AM Christian Renewal Center 1515 Hughes Road, Dickinson, TX 77539 Prayers – Fr. Steve Sellers, Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter Speaker – Rich May, national Catholic speaker Register: www.GRNonline.com/HoustonBreakfast

As of January 14, 2022, all donors who donated $250 or more to the CRC in 2021 will have received a 2021 CRC Donor Tax Letter (emailed out over the last 2 -weeks and mailed this week). If we had your email on file, we sent it by email to save on the cost of postage (yes it all adds up). In 2018 we only had 16 donors who donated $250 or more. In 2021 we had 125 donors who donated $250 or more. Together with your donations and CRC staff and volunteers, we have achieved so much. The tax letters came from Kim Brown since I am still the only office staff member. If you need assistance please email me to get anything updated or corrected.

Join us every Tuesday for Lent at the CRC for Exposition, Confession, and Prayer. This event is FREE and open to everyone. As an added bonus, the Tuesday before Lent we invite you to the pre-Lenten mission at 6PM in the Gerard Room where Kim Brown will speak about a Lenten battle plan by creating a Rule of Life.

In 2019 we raised funds to start renovation rooms at the CRC. We had collected funds in 2019, to begin the work in 2020. The funds raised in 2019 lasted through 2021 since we had to lay off staff due to COVID finances, so our room renovations went a little bit slower. Starting 2022, we need to raise funds to purchase more supplies for the room renovations. Originally, we were able to renovate a room for $6,710 but due to increased cost in construction materials, the rooms are now costing $7,917. Our goal is to have renovated every room by December 2025. This is only possible with donor support.

The CRC has an anonymous couple willing to match $25,000 for our Advent/End of the Year Campaign. Together we raised with this Matching gift $62,086 for the CRC in the month of December! THANK YOU for your support!

Due to the rising cost of food and supplies due to the COVID-19 pandemic and food shortage, we have had to increase our meal cost from $10 per person per meal to $11 per person per meal. This price goes into effect for all new contracts. All former contracts will have the price honor as listed. We hope to be able to reduce the cost as soon as possible.

The Feast of Christ the King ends the liturgical year on November 21, so we invite you to prayerfully consider joining us in this consecration to Christ the King. We will pray for nine days, starting on Friday, November 12, and ending on Saturday, November 20, on the Feast of Christ the King's vigil.

Currently, the CRC has 74 donors contributing on a monthly basis $3,467. Donors' amounts range from $5 to $200 a month. Together these donors' gifts enable us to continue making improvements at the CRC. Each week an area of the CRC gets improved. Every day we are rebuilding the Kingdom of God in physical and spiritual ways and our monthly donors ensure we have the funds to continue making improvements. It would be awesome if we could reach 100 monthly donors by the Feast of Christ the King (November 21). Please prayerfully consider becoming a monthly donor. If we each give according to our ability, amazing things can happen. The greatest part of the retreats at the CRC is encountering God, but sometimes a broken AC, smelly room, or uncomfortable bed can prevent someone from seeing God. Our goal is to not allow the physical environment to negatively impact their experience.

The CRC during COVID has provided in-person Confirmation Retreats for teens and parents. The retreat has been a great success as parents and teens grow in their faith together. To be accommodating and connect with the Domestic Church these retreats have been turned into an online retreat that can be done at home with teens and their parents. Kim Brown gives the retreat in an online format and allows the family to grow in faith together.

The CRC is looking for three people that are mission-minded to join us at the CRC. What’s the mission, “to draw people into a relationship with Jesus Christ and His Church through retreat ministry. The plan is to bring on 3 missionaries who commit to serving at the CRC for 1-year. These are paid salary positions with benefits and housing. Looking to create a culture change and Catholic revival. Missionaries will focus on various aspects of running a retreat center. Currently hiring details online at https://retreatcentercrc.org/hiring

On June 2, 2021, CRC Retreat Partners Inc submitted the following proposal for the land. To date, we have not received a response. We continue raising funds in hopes to purchase all the property. CRC Retreat Partners, Inc, a 501c3 non-profit that runs the day-to-day operations and financial management of the Christian Renewal Center per lease agreement with the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, offers $80,000 for the green area as identified on the map (professional survey needs to be conducted). The land would be given to the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston to be included in CRC property. Under the same conditions, it could not be sold off but must be used for religious purposes or returned to the Scanlan Foundation. We request the Scanlan Foundation Board to come to the CRC to see how this property interlocks with the retreat center. The green area is what is most critical to keep current operations. The green area includes our: maintenance shop, staff house, the road to our additional parking lot (no other way to access), as well as drainage systems. We have spent the entire month raising funds. This campaign is our largest single campaign ever in the non-profit's history running the retreat center (since 2008). We raised $78,719 from 141 different families/individuals. We are grateful to the Scanlan Foundation's help in 2013 purchasing from the Oblates and pray you will accept our offer. This offer allows the CRC to continue our current operations. Our offer allows the frontage road to still be sold to another party. *Attached is a 3-page document showing the property map of the land in regards to our offer.

Friends, together we were able to meet our $15,000 Matching Gift Goal! To date, 141 people have donated or pledge a total of $78,719. We will keep taking pledges and taking donations to secure the future of the CRC. Scanlan Foundation wants to sell the land for 1.3 million.

We are trying to protect the Holy Ground at the CRC and need your help. We currently have $15,000 in Matching Gift Funds available. Donate today to have your gift doubled. In the first 24-hours, we have raised $7,040. Please consider how you can give.