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Welcome to the latest Diocese of Lansing Realignment Resources for Mission weekly update. Happy Feast of Saint Jerome! This week we are exploring another of the principles of the Realign Resources for Mission vision. Today:
“A healthy parish in the Diocese of Lansing equips and empowers parish staff by ensuring it has sufficient staff to fulfill the mission,”
Realign Resources for Mission Principle 2.3
Read a great article by Brian Flynn. Brian is the Director of Middle School/High School Ministry for the Diocese of Lansing. He is also Director of Music at the parish of Saint Mary in Westphalia. So he writes with some experience on these matters!
Watch a short video by Father Chas Canoy, Pastor of Saint John the Evangelist in Jackson and a member of the Realign Resources for Mission Committee. Father Chas gives his thoughts on this week’s RRM principle (while standing in a hotel room somewhere in Michigan). Find out more by clicking on the video!
Pray this Friday, our Day of Great Mercy, for all the priests of the diocese as they conclude several days of prayer, discussion and fraternity in the company of Bishop Boyea, and their brother priests, at the annual Diocese of Lansing Priest Convocation which was held in Frankenmuth.
In other news: The members of the Realign Resources for Mission Committee are currently coordinating their calendars with a view to scheduling their next meeting. That’s due to take place in mid to late October. It’s at that gathering that they committee will review their final proposal for parish groupings within the Diocese of Lansing. The next step after that? Submitting that final recommendation to Bishop Boyea. So, please do keep the members of the committee in your prayers. Veni Sancte Spiritus! Come Holy Spirit!
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This week’s Realign Resources for Mission Principle:
“A healthy parish in the Diocese of Lansing equips and empowers parish staff by ensuring it has sufficient
staff to fulfill the mission,”
Realign Resources for Mission Principle 2.3
With
Brian Flynn,
Director of Middle School/High School Ministry,
Diocese of Lansing
September 30, 2021
Feast of Saint Jerome
Sufficient: Adjective – enough; adequate.
Dear Friend,
As we move to realign resources for mission, it will be crucial that this principle is implemented intentionally and effectively. In order to achieve this goal, our parishes will need to pay attention to two areas of “sufficiency;”
1. Sufficient in quantity
For those who have worked in lay ministry, this principle may be challenging to wrap your brains around. There are running jokes about the reality of parish ministry regarding how many hats lay ministers often find themselves wearing. Whether there aren’t enough people stepping forward in ministry so they are asked to take on more duties, or perhaps another all-to-common scenario where, in order to make ends meet, lay ministers have to take on additional roles we continue to see insufficient laborers for the harvest.
It isn’t automatically contrary to mission to have one person wearing multiple hats as in various circumstances it can make sense and be quite effective. However, the ideal is that every parish and parish grouping have enough staff to fulfill the mission without detracting from it. When we look at our current reality we see too many examples where this isn’t the case. Rather we often see only a few staff who are asked to perform more duties than they can possibly do justice to, which then leads to their time, attention, energy and resources across multiple ministries being spread too thin to be ultimately effective. This leads us to the second area of “sufficiency.”
2. Sufficient in capacity
When lay ministers are tasked with multiple areas of ministry, the situation can arise where they become mentally, psychologically, spiritually and emotionally burnt out. Lay ministers often lack the sufficient capacity to continue on in this scenario. It goes to follow that if one person is spread too thin across multiple areas, each area will suffer. I can attest to this personally. Since 2000, I have worked in two different parishes as Director of Music, Director of Religious Education (DRE) and Youth Ministry… all at the same time. From testimonies of people in those parishes, I know that I have been at least effective to some degree. And yet I can attest to the fact that pouring into multiple areas simultaneously has not been easy, and has not been without one area or another suffering (not to mention the toll on both my family and myself).
I remember running into one of our diocesan priests, whom I admire greatly, as he visited my parish to celebrate a wedding. He greeted me and said, “You’re still here! That’s longevity!” I thought to myself, “only by the grace of God!” Burn out in ministry has unfortunately become an expected and accepted outcome. Building trust in accompanying people in their discipleship is a key component of effective evangelization. How can trust be built when there is too often a revolving door of lay ministers in our parishes and where longevity is an anomaly?
As parishes realign their resources for mission according to this new model, moderators, pastors and leadership teams will need to pray and discern the areas of ministry most essential to their communities and make a plan to invest in them intentionally so that there are sufficient staff to fulfill the mission, with the sufficient capacity to pour themselves into it. This does not necessarily mean that every parish will have all of the same staff positions. For example, in one grouping there may be a youth minister, a DRE, and a coordinator of evangelization in every parish. Yet, in another grouping you may only see one person in each of those roles who helps to coordinate the particular ministry throughout the grouping. Perhaps one grouping will have business managers in every parish while another has one primary business manager who coordinates all of the related efforts for the grouping as a whole. In one grouping we may see one music ministry team coordinating efforts across all parishes in the grouping when in another grouping each parish has their own music ministry team. The point is, it’s going to look differently for every grouping. This is why surveying and discerning the landscape of both need and resources will be crucial on the part of local leadership. This principle is so interdependent upon preceding and succeeding principles that serious and intentional thought and prayer must be employed in order to achieve it.
As we move forward in realigning our resources for mission, let us pray for “the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest’” (Mt. 9:35-38) and for our parish leadership to put in place structures to help them succeed in the mission entrusted to us.
Yours in Christ,
Brian Flynn,
Director of Middle School/High School Ministry,
Diocese of Lansing
Watch: Watch this short video by Father Chas Canoy, Pastor of Saint John the Evangelist in Jackson and a member of the Realign Resources for Mission Committee as he gives his thoughts on this week’s RRM principle.:
“A healthy parish in the Diocese of Lansing equips and empowers parish staff by ensuring it has sufficient staff to fulfill the mission.” He’ll also explain why he is standing in a hotel room!
This Week’s Friday Prayer Intention:
Please pray for our beloved priests across the Diocese of Lansing, that they may be protected from all harm by Mary, Queen of the Clergy. Amen.
Guidelines for Friday Prayer:
Prayer: At three o’clock each Friday afternoon pray the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary. To help with prayer, Eucharistic Adoration from Saint Mary Cathedral in Lansing will be live-streamed on YouTube and Facebook. If you can’t manage to pray at 3pm? Just say the Holy Rosary whenever you can.
Fasting: The present norms for fasting suggest that we eat no more than one full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together are not equal to a full meal. It is also permissible to attempt a strict fast. A penitent’s age and health should always be taken into consideration before fasting.
Almsgiving: Giving alms is a “work of justice pleasing to God” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2462). Hence, each Friday we should donate money or goods to the poor or perform another act of charity. Let’s not reach sundown on a Friday without having poured out some of the content of our heart or our wallet or both during the day.
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