If you can cut through the BS (business speak), there is a pretty good article on the Industry Week Web site about developing a parish leadership team. It’s not really written for parishes, but it can be translated from “business” to “Catholic” with a little effort.

Here’s the key message:

Developing a well-aligned organization depends on two critical factors: First, the systems and structures must support the strategic vision; and second, the members of the organization must understand how the top strategic objectives translate to personal goals. Alignment is an agreement on the goals of the organization and on the process of allocating resources to achieve these goals. The first step in improving this alignment is being able to understand the opportunity, which can exist even without visible disagreement.

Here’s my translation:

Pastors need to do two things to make sure the parish staff and volunteers are working together effectively.

1. Identify what it is the parish is best in the world at and then set up the budget and other parish resources to do that top priority thing first.
2. Communicate, communicate, and communicate some more about how each person’s ministry and each committee’s agenda supports that top parish priority.

The article then goes on to discuss how to “measure the degree of alignment amongst teams.” Which I think means, how is a pastor supposed to get everyone to agree and act on the top priority for a parish?

I thought it might be an interesting exercise to read the article together and try to translate it together to see what insights we might get for parish leadership. Anyone interested? Read the article here. Then choose a few lines you found helpful and give us the “Catholic” version in the comments section.

2 Responses to “Two keys to effective parish ministry”

1. Leota says:

   November 2, 2009 at 12:16 pm

   1.Identify what it is the parish is best in the world at and then set up the budget and other parish resources to do that top priority thing first

   Sorry – this doesn’t make any linguistic sense to me??
2. Facebook User says:

   November 2, 2009 at 12:26 pm

   Hi Leota. You’re right. That probably could have been written more clearly! Here’s what I was trying to get at.

   1. What is it that your parish is best at? What is the most excellent thing you do as a parish?

   2. Does your budget reflect that as a priority? Are you allotting enough dollars to the thing you do best?

   3. Does your staffing reflect that priority? Are you hiring people who can contribute to the excellence of the parish?

   4. Does your committee structure reflect what the parish is best at? Are you recruiting volunteers and scheduling meetings based on a goal of parish excellence?

   5. What is it you need to *stop* doing so you can devote more resources to the thing you do best as a parish?

   I hope that helps. Thanks for the prompting.