Leadership team from CTK travels to California
LOS ANGELES — A parish leadership team from Christ the King Parish in Springfield — Father Joe Ring, pastor, Madonna Jones, pastoral associate and Linda Younkin, director of music ministries — traveled to Los Angeles to participate in a creative and collaborative leadership learning community with 11 other leadership teams from across the United States.
Sharing best practices with these parishes, as well as instruction and insight from prominent leaders in the church, the goal of Parish Catalyst is to imagine and stretch current visions of ministry and to develop and implement a specific strategic plan with a core goal of intentional discipleship.
Parish Catalyst is an 18-month project that began in January and ends in July 2017. Parish teams meet four times over the 18-month period. Parish Catalyst is by invitation only to 12 pastors and two of their staff members. Father Ring was chosen as a pastor of a vibrant parish after an interview in 2014.
“I found the July conference to be affirming in what we are doing at Christ the King in the area of evangelization and hospitality,” said Father Ring. “I also found it challenging to create a detailed plan to implement over the next several months in our outreach to seekers.”
Prior to attending the first conference, the CTK leadership team met with the pastoral council and staff members to identify strengths, weaknesses, needs and goals as a parish. This information and parish input was the first and critical step in creating a six-month short term plan, to be fulfilled between sessions to develop specific foundational work, and a two-year long term plan to develop long term goals and growth. This dialogue between parish leadership is vital to the Parish Catalyst process.
Based on the idea that “no model is perfect, but some are useful,” the Parish Catalyst program invited guest speaker Rick Warren, author of the New York Times best seller, The Purpose Driven Life and The Purpose Driven Church and pastor of Saddleback Church in California, to share his thoughts and ideas. Warren, pastor of one of America’s biggest and fastest-growing churches, is a proponent of small group faith formation. “People come for the content but stay for the relationships,” said Pastor Warren.
“What I find most helpful is taking the time to develop relationships, not only with our leadership team, but with so many other wonderful church leaders from across the United States, said Jones about her experience. “I really enjoy the part at the end of the three-day session when we present our plan and the other parish teams look at our situation/ideas and give us input on different ways to look at something or different ways to do the same thing. There is so much wisdom in the room, so much honesty, so much compassion.
“I also appreciate the time to talk and focus on the parish with Father Joe and Linda. We had some very honest conversations, which were sometimes difficult, but necessary in looking at the reality of what is and what could be,” Jones said.
The task can seem overwhelming. “One of the difficult parts is pruning and prioritizing our parish needs, keeping in mind the incredible potential of our parish, but understanding the need to focus on what is most important,” said Younkin. “Further developing a parish family of disciples who have a personal relationship with God, and, as a result of this, become a more active mission and ministry based faith community.”