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MOTIVATING YOUR PARISH TO CHANGE
Concrete Leadership Strategies for Pastors, Administrators, and Lay Leaders
Rev. David Heney
Paper, $16.95
128 pages, 5½" × 8½"
ISBN 0-89390-433-3
View Table of Contents
View Excerpt
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Lead them with the spirit of Moses, and the skill of Lee Iacocca. Knowing
you want to take a community somewhere is one thing. Getting them there
is another. And how you do it, especially in ministry, is another. Using
the metaphor of Moses taking charge and leading his people to Israel, Rev.
Dave Heney shows you how to rise to the occasion and empower others to
reach common goals.
Table of Contents
Preface 4
Introduction 7
1. Moses and the Exodus 5
- What does a Leader do? 5
- Leading with Purpose, Picture, Plan, and Participation 7
- Communicating it all to the people10
- Commitment, Control, and Change 11
2. Finding the Promised Land 13
- Finding a Purpose 13
- Collaboration or Cooperation? 16
- Finding the purpose together: collaboration 17
- Forming a Purpose 18
- Keeping the Purpose close to the People 19
- Keeping the Purpose Loyal to Core Values 23
- Pushing the Purpose to the Limit 26
- Staying focused on the purpose 27
- Making the purpose effective? 29
- Questions for reflecting on the purpose 31
- Painting the Picture 32
- What is the picture now 35
- Questions for reflecting on the picture of the future 36
3. Getting Started on the Journey 37
- Before Setting Your Goals 38
- Forming Goals by Planning Smartly 40
- Shaping the Plan 43
- Participating in the Purpose 45
- Revealing The Natural Desire to Excel 47
- Using good feedback to correct our mistakes 48
- Creating the desire to participate 50
- Questions for reflecting on Participation 53
- Communicating with Credibility 48
- Putting it all together in a story 51
4. Staying In Charge of the Journey 61
- Taking Bold First Steps on the Road 61
- Understanding Why People Follow Leaders 63
- Analyzing the Character Traits of Leaders 64
- Be Credible 64
- Be Bold 66
- Be Skilled 66
- Be Steady 67
- Be Passionate 67
- Be Caring 68
- Real Leaders Are Real People 70
- Real Leaders Serve Others, Not Themselves 73
- Real Leaders Have Followers 74
- Real Leaders Lead From the Front 75
- Real Leaders Make Constant Improvements 77
- Real Leaders Make New Leaders 78
- Real Leaders Gotm "Apostles" or "Missionaries" 80
- Real Leaders Form Apprentices 81
5. Going to the Wrong Place 85
- Dealing With Poor Leadership 85
- Convincing People Who Don't Want to Go 94
- Helping The Problem Follower 96
- Know the Truth 98
- Tell the Truth 99
- Show the Truth 100
- Recommend or Invite a Solution to the Problem 100
- Discovering Where Problem Behaviors Develop 102
- Keeping a calm attitude 103
6. Caring For The People Who Follow 70
- People 106
- Pace 107
- Politeness 108
- Professionalism 108
- Problems 109
7. Conclusion 111
Preface
Ministry is a joy. Well, maybe ministry is difficult. Which describes your
experience? More likely, you might oscillate between these descriptions
depending on the circumstances of your day. Of course, I hope your ministry
is a joyful and satisfying experience. For too many, though, ministry is
becoming a serious challenge. It is becoming more difficult to live with
any kind of joy. This book would like to change that.
If you are a parish leader in these post--Vatican II times, you have
a lot of challenges. Whether you're the pastor, associate, school principal,
teacher, or in charge of some parish ministry team, you deal in important
ways with people. You are in charge, and that carries a great responsibility.
How will you lead? How will you get your ideas across? How will you treat
people? Today, so many people involved in church activities are volunteers.
They just cannot be ordered around, no matter how good the orders are.
Keeping their loyalty and energy high involves different skills than those
used with paid staff. Of course, parishioners are also, in a sense, volunteers.
They don't have to be involved at all. People often ignore parish boundaries
and go where they like, and that is a new challenge for leaders today.
Motivating and leading people is no easy task, even for "born leaders"
who seem so natural at it. Not everyone succeeds. Unfortunately, there
are too many stories of parish leaders "burning out" and leaving ministry
after just a short time of service. Leading the people of your parish that
you love so much can be frustrating, confusing, and stressful. Let's face
it, being in charge of people can be dangerous to your health! If you are
in any kind of leadership position in the parish at all, this book is written
for you.
Certainly, the first apostles found leading people challenging, but
today that task seems even more complex. While we may want to go "into
the whole world and baptize all nations," sometimes we're not exactly sure
how to accomplish it. After all, the world changes so quickly. What worked
well in one era may produce little benefit in the next. And for that matter,
what does it really mean to go "into the world" anyway? What kind of world
is it today? How can we bring people to Christ in the best possible way,
and in a way that is both genuine and real? Even more important, how can
we do it in the way God wants? We parish leaders ask those questions precisely
because we love the Lord and believe in him. We ask because we want to
continue his mission, and we want to do it well.
We live in a cynical age. Our society does not look kindly on leaders,
authorities, or institutions. Numerous studies and opinion polls have shown
that people are disappointed in government leaders, are angry at greedy
business managers, and are shocked by the personal scandals of those in
high places. There is an almost automatic resistance to any person who
dares tell us what to do. The goodness of the message becomes lost in our
general mistrust of institutional authority. Yet we can really accomplish
nothing as a people of God without effective leaders who know what they
are doing and who can lead well. Ironically, we can use this very mistrust
as a spur to energize our own desire to succeed. Now more than ever, we
need effective leadership to turn mistrust into confidence and hope for
the future. Now is an important time for leaders to lead well. Let us rediscover
good leadership as God intended it to be.
These reflections will look at the ministry of parish leaders in difficult
and changing times and offer some guidelines for working with people more
effectively. These ideas will be more than just clever management techniques
or organizational tricks of the business world. After all, our life is
more than just a job. Our ministry is more than just good business practice.
We need a model of service that is not only authentic to the Gospel but
also a joy to live. We need a way to work joyfully, even in these difficult
times, that is still faithful to our best Christian traditions. Of course,
every age in church history has had its problems, but this present time
is our time and involves us, so we need to address the issues for ministers
today.
This is not a book on the spirituality or faith-development of leaders.
Of course, our relationship with God and our spiritual life are of paramount
importance. Of course, our faith must be the core of all we do. However,
there are many books on spirituality for ministers already. That aspect
of parish leadership is very well covered by literally thousands of authors,
workshops, and seminars. Nevertheless, we need to know both the vertical
dimension of faith and the horizontal dimension of organizational dynamics.
This book adds to the field by addressing the human side of leadership.
It addresses those human dynamics that occur when one person attempts to
influence the actions of another. "Grace builds on nature." This book is
about human nature and what happens when we attempt to lead others in accord
with the grace of God.
There are many ways of organizing this material, but it is not meant
to be just another book on management technique. Nevertheless, this book
will draw on some of those management ideas simply because they are effective.
Certainly, terms like quality, customer service, and job satisfaction are
hot topics in business today, especially in this era of global competition.
The power of today's fiercely competitive business climate has forced many
American companies to isolate more precisely just what the factors are
for commercial success. American consumers have many product options before
them, and only certain effective companies will succeed in capturing the
elusive American consumer. Well, we are competing as well in a religiously
pluralistic society. People today tend to "shop around" for the best church
experiences. Our people have many religious options before them, so we
need to be organized just as well as a business to succeed. We want our
people to experience the faith as clearly as possible so that the voice
of God comes through clearly to them. While we believe it is the Lord who
calls people to himself, we also believe he calls us to do our part as
well.
We can no longer take effective ministry, or people, for granted. As
a church, we can isolate those human factors from our own tradition and
those that God has used to help the church grow in ages past. We believe
we can discover unique leadership dynamics from our own salvation history
that can predict success for our own time. After all, our faith has had
a lot of success already. We don't want to lose the valuable examples of
heroic leadership from our past. We can listen and learn from Abraham and
Moses, from Peter and Paul, and from the Lord himself. The sure and certain
minister, joyfully working under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is our
goal. There can be no doubt or confusion concerning our role in this religiously
competitive world. The ideas in this book can help any minister answer
the provocative and personal question, "What should I be doing around here?"
There is no stronger message of hope in all the Gospels than these
wonderful lines from Matthew: "I am with you always, to the end of the
age" (28:20). They are just the right words to calm fears about taking
on the world. They give us courage but remind us of real work as well.
While Jesus is always present to encourage us with his grace and support,
there is no doubt the salvation of the world remains a cooperative mission
between God and us. Salvation is not automatic, nor, for that matter, is
a smoothly working church. There is a real part for us to do. Neither God
nor the church work alone, for he needs us as we need him. He simply wants
us to do our share.
Because our church has many leadership titles such as bishop, pastor,
principal, teacher, and minister, I will use the more generic titles of
leader, followers, and workers to simplify discussion. The main subject,
however, remains leadership and its crucial place at the center of church
life. This book is about the leading of souls. It is addressed to anyone
who is in charge, and it invites him or her to take his or her position
seriously, for the consequences are serious if that doesn't happen.
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