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Developing lay leaders key for future, speaker says |
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By Julie Carroll
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Wednesday, 18 November 2009 |
Recruiting and developing effective lay leaders is key for the future of Catholic parishes, consultant Jerry Roth told about 30 parish staff members and volunteers at a conference sponsored by The Center for Parish Leadership.
Roth, executive director of the Burnsville nonprofit organization,
explained how parishes can help parishioners discern which ministries
best suit their gifts. He also laid out a plan that parishes can use to
develop and support lay leaders.
About 30 representatives of parishes from throughout the Archdiocese of
St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of St. Cloud attended the
sixth annual Parish Leadership Conference Nov. 14 at St. John Neumann
in Eagan. The Catholic Spirit co-sponsored the event.
Roth suggested that parishes create a resource handbook for new
employees and volunteers, hold discernment retreats for people in
ministry, and have gatherings for people in different ministries to
come together as a team.
“You need to build a spirit of ‘we are in this together,’” Roth said.
Emily Klinker, one of six conference attendees from Guardian Angels in
Chaska, said as director of faith formation she depends on volunteers
to assist her in her ministry at the rapidly growing parish.
“We’ve given ourselves the name ‘the cathedral of the valley’ because
we’re the fastest growing parish in the archdiocese,” Klinker said.
“That’s the challenge. We are growing, but the staff isn’t growing. We
need to serve the needs of all the people, but we as a staff can’t do
it all.”
That’s why a plan to develop lay leaders is important to the parish, she added.
“As we said a million times today, it’s going to be the lay ministry
that runs the churches more and more,” she said, “and we need to give
them the tools they need.”
Klinker said the conference also helped her realize the importance of
bringing together members of different ministries more often. “That’s
one thing I’m really going to push for,” she said. “Let’s get together
and share a meal and share prayer, not just business.”
Empowering parishioners
Sandy Scholz, business manager at St. Joseph in St. Joseph, said after
the conference: “We are recognizing that we have wonderful people in
our parish and they want to step into leadership roles, but oftentimes
they feel inadequate because parish leadership is totally different
from business leadership. So we’re looking for some tools to help with
that. . . .
“We need to empower the lay members of the parish so that it’s not staff driven,” she added.
At All Saints in Lakeville, parishioner Jerry Daily recently served on
a long-range planning team. One of the team’s recommendations, he said,
was to create the kind of leadership development process discussed at
the conference.
Daily, a retired federal government employee, said that in his job “we
always had to look for our replacements and develop people to carry the
ball after we left. This was somewhat of a missing piece at our parish,
and we’re starting it now.”
For more information about parish leadership development, contact Jerry
Roth at The Center for Parish Leadership at
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
or
(612) 875-2272.
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