Church beckons after careers in business
Commissioned Ministry provides training for parish work
Seventh in a Bishop's Appeal series
By Joanne Flemming
Compass Correspondent
Two years ago Carrie Miller of Green Bay, then 27, decided to stop climbing the corporate ladder "as fast as I could" and find a career where she could "give back and help others." She is now youth minister for Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, De Pere.
Jane Vanden Boogard, 51, Little Chute, is looking ahead five to 10 years when she retires as a business systems analyst at Thrivent in Appleton. A member of Holy Cross Parish, Kaukauna, she wants to become a parish business administrator or youth minister.
"I want to give back to the parish," Vanden Boogard said. "I don't want to see parishes die because we don't have enough people available to keep them moving. That is kind of a passion for me. We need to make (the parishes) strong and vibrant and keep attracting people."
Both women have found help in preparing for their career changes through the Green Bay Diocese's commissioned lay ministry program. Both are in their second year in that program.
Tony Pichler, diocesan director for lay ministry formation, said in the last 10-15 years more people have seen "different possibilities in ministries in terms of parishes. They come out of the program and are able to do ministries."
The commissioned ministry program, which takes three to four years to complete, has five tracks: religious education, youth ministry, pastoral ministry, liturgy, and parish business administration. Participants can choose one track or a combination of tracks. Six core courses in spirituality, Scripture and theology provide the foundation for the tracks. A person doesn't have to be enrolled in the commissioned ministry program to take courses, Pichler said.
Miller worked four years for Kohler Co. She was an associate product manager for the shower door division's marketing department leading teams that brought new products to market when she quit two years ago.
Miller has a business degree from St. Norbert College, De Pere, and a master's in business from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.
Her situation had become "extremely stressful," Miller said. Besides commuting one hour each way between Green Bay and Kohler, she worked 12-plus hour days. Her job "was taking away from time that I should have been spending with my husband and other family and friends."
She and her husband, Paul, have been married four years and are expecting their first child in August.
"I stepped back and did a lot of contemplation, praying and evaluation about what was ultimately important in my life," Miller said. "I further wanted to strengthen my relationship with God, my faith and the church."
After quitting at Kohler, she took two months off "to re-focus and re-balance from the corporate world." During that time she enrolled in the lay ministry program.
Miller said that she and Paul had served as catechists for high school students at Our Lady of Lourdes since they married. As they became more involved with the parish, they realized they wanted to do more.
The parish decided her request to work with youth was a way to get the youth ministry program "back up and running." Miller used her business marketing skills to promote the ministry. Nine young people showed up for the first meeting a year ago.
Today, 40 middle school and 15 high school students are involved in youth ministry. Miller has divided them into three groups: grades 6-8, 9-10 and 11-12, which meet for discussions and service projects. Once a month they plan and assume all roles from ushers to lectors at Mass.
She said she emphasizes the middle school program because its participants will help the high school group grow.
So far, she and Paul have conducted the youth ministry meetings. However, she is working to develop a leadership team of eight or nine adults who will work with the ministry as it grows.
Courses in the commissioned ministry program "have grounded me in Scripture, history and tradition and given me the background to do the job with the kids," Miller said. They have helped her analyze her "spiritual journey" and introduced her to spiritual direction. She has been working with a spiritual director for about a year.
This summer Miller plans to take courses in the youth ministry track.
Vanden Boogard has worked at Thrivent for 33 years, beginning right out of high school as a keypunch operator when it was known as Aid Association for Lutherans. Since then it has provided her with "good mentors" and helped her develop management and leadership skills that have allowed her to advance.
As a business systems analyst she helps "people define the requirements for the systems (such as software applications) they use" and then help develop the systems.
"I feel like I want to use the gifts God gave me for parishes," Vanden Boogard said. "I think there is a lot of opportunity in business administration in parishes, something definitely lay people can do because of all their experience in business. They can free up our ordained to focus on the spiritual aspect."
Since retirement is several years off, she hopes to ease into parish business administration by volunteering and learning systems. She will begin the commissioned ministry business track later this year.
Vanden Boogard volunteers with the youth ministry program at Holy Cross. She has led small groups in the confirmation program for 16 years. Recently she took over directing the biennial youth retreat in Colorado. All that has made youth ministry a retirement option, she said.
The commissioned ministry program has "helped me grow personally in my own faith journey," she said. "I understand what my faith is all about and where I want to take it in the future."
Parish Business Administrator:
When the Church Lights Goes Out,
They Look at You
Lay Ecclesial Ministry
"Together in God's Service"
Article 9
By Stephen Kent
SEATTLE -- It's the type of job that, when there's a light out or a chill draft, many eyes in the congregation turn toward you. Some describe it as similar to a hospital administrator: making sure the building is maintained, the staff is paid and the budget balanced so physicians, surgeons and nurses can practice their professions.
In some dioceses, it is called parish business administrator, in others, pastoral assistant for administration. However known, the position is becoming increasingly prevalent as lay people bring their skills and gifts to benefit the temporal affairs of the church.
Few have had formal training for their roles. Some have evolved into the position from an earlier ministry, others are people who had careers in such fields as accounting and the military and now use their business and managerial skills.
John Meyer is typical of the former. He has been in parish administration over 20 years. He is pastoral assistant for administration at St. Brendan Parish in Bothell, Wash. The parish, established in 1946 when the area east of Seattle was rural "berries and dairies," now serves 5,000 parishioners in 1,500 households in the suburban software boomtown.
St. Brendan is Meyer's third position in parish management. After graduating from Western Washington University with a communications degree, he became a youth minister at a suburban Seattle parish in 1978.
"We had two priests and then one was transferred and we were down to weekend help," he recalled. "So the pastor gave me some extra administrative duties and that's how I got into administration." In 1985, he went to another north Seattle suburban parish in full time administration. Meyer came to his present position at St. Brendan in 1992.
"There I became aware of others doing similar jobs," he said. "I invited them to lunch and out of that came the Association of Parish Administrators of Western Washington." That group, which had 50 members, met regularly and had day-long sessions on such things as parish accounting software and stewardship of time and talent. The organization was later blended into the Association of Lay Ministers.
The Archdiocese of Seattle now operates a program for newly hired administrators which meets one day a month for nine months, to cover topics such as personnel management, diocesan accounting policies, and facilities management.
"The most important aspect of this position is to create credibility and integrity with the parishioners," he said. He is responsible for fund raising, budgeting, personnel and capital projects and facilities management. "But in any one day, I can do all four," Meyer said. Now a new responsibility has been added, computer technology.
Like the liturgical year, the administrative year is cyclical, according to Meyer. Fall is for fund raising through stewardship, winter is for planning and budgeting, spring for hiring staff and summer for capital projects.
"The job is one where you have to know a little bit about a lot of things," he said. He will be overseeing a major building renovation of the parish school this summer, including the heating plant and seismic retrofit.
Meyer admits to a 50-60 hour, six-day work week.
"I get tired after a while but I've been able to make it work."
"With a six-day week, I may not always want to come back on the seventh day to worship. If the light goes out at Mass, everyone turns and looks at you," he laughed.
The pastor and his assistant for administration (PAA) must have a close relationship, Meyer feels.
"The relationship with the pastor is extremely important. The pastor and PAA must be very close and must work well together," he said.
After 20 years and three parish positions, Meyer can assess the pluses and minuses of a parish administrative career.
"Working with and ministering to people of the same values I have makes a great difference. The staff is a team and is cohesive and there is the real commitment of the parishioners who give of their time and talent."
A survey taken prior to fund raising for the school renovation showed "a high degree of confidence" in the parish administration, he said.
The professional challenges are financial.
"As a parish there is never enough money. While salaries for staff have improved, they are not where they should be. This is a very tight labor market and we've had to work very hard to fill positions."
He and his wife have raised three children, now aged 17, 19 and 21. The personal challenges, he said, have been to balance job, family, and health and maintain his own spirituality. "Maintaining one's own spirituality can be a challenge," he said.
He summarizes his career. "I see myself as a minister first, a business manager second.
"God has taken extremely good care of me."
Stephen Kent is the editor of the Catholic Northwest Progress, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Seattle.
Email us at flwymail@usccb.org
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Business leaders say they can solve church management woes
National Catholic Reporter, March 25, 2005 by Joe Feuerherd
Catholic corporate leaders want a piece of the church reform business. The moguls and magnates say the church must adopt "modern management techniques" if it is to thrive at a time of declining vocations, decreasing Mass attendance, and the financial aftershocks of the clergy sex abuse crisis.
"I see an organization [the church] in trouble," said Richard Syron, chairman and CEO of Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance giant, speaking at the March 14 news conference where the newly formed National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management was launched. Syron knows trouble. He took the reins of Freddie Mac in January 2004, following revelations of accounting fraud at the firm. Previously, the corporate turnaround specialist headed up and reformed the Thermo Electron Corporation and the American Stock Exchange.
"It's only when organizations are in trouble that you motivate change," Syron said. And the "level of discontent" among the laity presents a chance to implement new ways of doing business, but leaders must act quickly to address problems or that "discontent will transform into apathy."
The high-powered private sector founders of the Washington-based Roundtable eschew ideological and theological agendas. Instead, say its founders, the Roundtable will focus on a relatively narrow set of concerns--"excellence and best practices in church finances, management practices and human resources"--that don't brush up against doctrinal or canonical issues. Among the anticipated and possible projects: assistance to major universities as they contemplate establishing advanced degree programs in church management, identifying and promoting "best practices" for diocesan and parish administrators, conducting research into church management issues, and providing direct consulting services to dioceses.
The need is obvious, according the Geoffrey Boisi, the New York investment banker who began laying the groundwork for the new organization in July 2003 when he sponsored the first of two meetings of leading Catholics and members of the hierarchy (NCR, Aug. 1, 2003).
With 1 million employees nationwide and combined budgets of $100 billion, the U.S. church "is comparable in size and scope to the nation's largest corporations," said Boisi, the JPMorgan Chase vice president. While acknowledging that the "church is not a business," Boisi said the institution has "things to learn from the business world," not least in the areas of financial disclosure, budgeting and personnel development.
The Roundtable's first order of business was the release of a 79-page "Report on the Church in America." That study, and its 48 recommendations for parishes, dioceses and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, grew out of a two-day meeting on church management held last summer at the Wharton School of Business. Attendees at the meeting included a dozen bishops, and a wide range of Catholic academics, writers and business leaders.
Among the recommendations directed at the bishops' conference:
* The National Advisory Council--a largely lay board advising the bishops' conference with little current influence on the bishops' agenda or programs--should have the power to initiate and react to proposals before the conference, and should get a permanent staff.
* Dioceses should be urged to adopt the ethics and accountability code for nonprofits published by the Standards for Excellence Institute. Those standards should serve as a "performance benchmark for pastoral and finance councils as well as other church-affiliated entities."
* Dioceses should undergo a review similar to that of accredited universities every five years.
* The selection of bishops--"while recognizing the Holy See's role"--should "include a clear definition of qualifications (including managerial capabilities), face-to-face interviews, and well-informed nominations and recommendations from clergy and laity."
Further, the report recommends that the bishops' conference assist dioceses in developing "reader friendly" budgets and strategic plans, as well as "examine fundraising processes at all levels."
One bishop, Dale J. Melczek of Gary, Ind., voiced enthusiasm for the project. He spoke of an increasing "culture of collaboration" within the church and the need for lay involvement. "Even if we had a plethora of clergy and religious, this would be required of the Catholic faithful" who are called to "transform the world," Melczek told the press.
Savannah, Ga., Bishop Kevin Boland, however, struck a slightly discordant note, using Wal-Mart as an example of "values of corporate America that are negative," while cautioning that the church should not be "looked upon ... as a corporation." Boland, who said he has already implemented in his diocese many of the administrative measures called for by the Roundtable, praised the bishops' management of the clergy sex abuse crisis. History, he said, "will give credit to the church" for the way it has dealt with the situation.
"There's an education process that has to take place on both sides," said Boisi, who was to meet March 15 in Washington with members of the bishops' conference administrative board.
Initially, the Roundtable will be housed in the Washington offices of FADICA, the association of Catholic philanthropies. Ana Vilamil Kelly, a former staffmember of the bishops' Secretariat for Family, Laity, Women and Youth, is the group's executive director.
FADICA president Frank Butler, retired Bechtel Group vice chairman Frederick Gluck, and Jesuit Fr. Donald Monan, formerly president of Boston College, will lead the membership committee charged with recruiting more than 200 national leaders from business, professional associations and foundations, universities, health care systems and parishes and dioceses.
Later this year, the Roundtable will distribute a set of six DVDs and workbooks to every U.S. parish and diocese. The goal is to begin discussion of church management issues around the country.
[Joe Feuerherd is NCR Washington correspondent. His e-mail address is jfeuerherd@natcath.org.]
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