Program FAQs
A. Almost all of it.
You’ll be implementing projects and receive feedback on that work from those participating. These initiatives are all designed to move a parish toward a healthier, more faithful and vibrant life.
As you work on the initiatives you’ll have the opportunity to learn how to be more effective in shaping your parish.
For example:
1) Being able to see what’s appropriate for your parish given its strategic needs, the parish’s readiness for a particular intervention, and your own skill level.
2) Learning how to focus your efforts on work that contributes to long-term parish health and faithfulness. This is different from being on the treadmill of having to plan and implement an endless series of new programs and activities. Real parish development is about shaping a parish culture that is for the long haul.
4)The program will also assist you in trying out new behavior and skills. Expanding your range of choice is an important part of Shaping the Parish. If you stay with your own growth as a person and leader, you’ll find yourself trying new behaviors in the parish as well as the rest of your life.
Q. The program is drawing on the methods and knowledge of ascetical theology and organization development. What do you mean by ascetical theology and organization development?
A. Ascetical theology is about spiritual practice. It is grounded in an understanding of the church’s spiritual teachings as seen in Scriptures and the writings of the early church. It is concerned with the on-going task of living the Christian life and reflecting upon it. What kind of person and human community do we want to form? What are ways of seeing the stages of growth in the Christian Life? How might the parish contribute to that task? What are the practices that will best do that in our time? What are the “spiritual life maps” that offer us an integrated and systemic approach?
Organization development is a system-wide application of behavioral science knowledge to the planned development and reinforcement of organizational strategies, structures, and processes for improving an organization’s effectiveness. (Cummings and Worley)
It is worth mentioning that Organization Development is not the same thing as organizational development. See Taking the al Out of OD
Q. What kind of stance do I need to take if I’m to gain the most I can from the program?
A. You need to come with a stance that you will open yourself to new ways of thinking and behaving. The program will offer you an opportunity to expand your range of leadership behaviors and skills. You need to be willing to engage that process; to use the skills, methods, and interventions “as given.” This is to give ideas and methods that may be new to you a “fair chance” before evaluating and modifying them in the future.
Q - Any suggestions for handling the normal routine and demands of parish life along with those of the program?
A - The program requires a full commitment of your time and energy. It needs to have some priority.
Start with the assumption that your participation in the program means that what has been routine needs to change. One thing you can do is to look for opportunities to integrate things. For example, make some of your projects the parish’s programs of education and spiritual or leadership development.
From In Your Holy Spirit: Shaping the Parish Through Spiritual Practices, Robert A Gallagher: “In organization development there’s an assumption that all organizations have a “demand system.” That demand system is the web of expectations and pressures calling for energy, time and money. The demands may be external or internal. All parishes have the regular flow of work it must attend to. There’s the occasional crisis, problems to solve and deadlines to meet. We also get caught up in work that just isn’t very important to what we exist to do and be. Some meetings, phone calls and e-mail are like that. Most of us also have routines that are in fact either busy-work or time wasters. All those things, the important and the unimportant, consume most parishes and most of our individual lives.
The activities that transform parish and personal life can take a back seat to the routine business that must be done and to the unimportant interruptions and trivia of life. What renews life and develops the parish waits for when there’s time. This means relationships don’t get built, people don’t receive training and coaching in spiritual practices, strategic issues aren’t addressed, and so opportunities are missed and crises not foreseen and prevented.
We can turn all that around by adding elements to the demand system. We need to add activities and resources into parish life that keep the important, transformative matters in front of us. In parish development it means things like a yearly leadership retreat that works only on strategic matters; having a skilled external consultant; leaders receiving in-depth leadership training for parish development, and developing a richer parish life of prayer through the Daily Office and increasing the ability of members for participation in the Eucharist and their own personal devotions.
It was Stephen Covey who said something like, ‘Don’t prioritize your schedule; schedule your priorities.’ ”
Q. What do you mean by emotional intelligence?
A. We are thinking of competencies such as self-awareness and self-management, empathy, our use of influence, communication skills, and our ability to work collaboratively while being self-differentiated. See the paper “The Emotional Competence Framework.”
Q. How emotionally demanding is the program?
A. Exploring new ways of leadership behavior and receiving feedback can be stressful. Much of the workshop time uses experiential education methods - a group experiences an assigned task followed by disciplined reflection on what happened in the group and feedback on the impact of your behavior on others.
Q. What level of parish development competence does Shaping the Parish prepare me for?
A. For most people the program can help you develop enough competence to make a difference in the life of your parish. However, an on-line program with 62 hours of workshop time isn’t the same as doing the Church Development Institute in-person with 120 hours of workshop time.
Becoming professionally competent in the field usually requires the following:
1. Training - A program like the Church Development Institute and at least four weeks of experiential workshops in areas such as human interaction, conflict management, design skills (education and program), consultation skills. An experiential-based degree program in organization development would accomplish most of this. Some additional work in the unique issues and dynamics of congregations would be needed as well. D Min congregational development programs are generally not experiential enough to develop the needed competency; they can, though, be useful as a structure for reading and writing in the field.
2. Interning/Being mentored - Working with someone with more experience in the field. Seeing how someone else leads, trains, or consults. Having someone else help you critique your work.
3. Experience - Having three years experience beyond your training.
4. Reading in the field - During all the above while engaging a course of reading in the field.
For more see- Congregational Development Leadership - Consultant Assessment
Q - The program requires a significant commitment of time, is that really necessary?
A - Our experience has been that for the participant to significantly increase their proficiency the program needs to be long enough, and require enough work, to develop a critical mass of learning. Too many dioceses seem to assume parish development can be done on the cheap, asking for a Saturday here and there. While we work at being as efficient as possible about time, we will not tell people that results can be produced without an adequate investment.
Q - Is this a continuing education program for clergy?
A - Not really. The program is about the parish’s revitalization. It’s not about the continuing education of the clergy. So, there are no CEU’s offered. We, of course, hope clergy will learn a great deal. That learning however is directly about the health of your parish.
Q - How transferable is this into a secular work setting? If I’m a lay person having to ask my boss for time off to attend - how might I explain it?
A - The program is grounded in organization development and systems thinking. We are applying to a church setting what we know broadly about the field of organization development, including change methods; coaching and people development; ways to increase buy-in and accountability, thereby improving team functioning; and effective analysis and decision-making. These areas are critical to the health of any organization and we will be using methods and theories that can be easily transferred to different organizational settings. Our specific aim is to increase the skills of participants in all of these areas, while building flexibility and depth.
In Sister Michelle’s secular career, she has served as the Chief Compliance Officer for a regional financial services company. She is now a partner in a financial services firm. Her training with the church has led to significant and tangible improvements in her own leadership skills and in her ability to further the organization’s goals. Her firm now offers organization development services to its clients. For many years Brother Robert’s consulting work was primarily with non-profit organizations and a few small businesses. Major contracts were with WomenRising in Jersey City (domestic abuse shelter, social services, affordable housing), the Affordable Housing Network of NJ, and Tom’s of Maine.
A - If you need to withdraw from STP we’d appreciate letting us know. It helps us as we design the sessions of the program. We understand that participants may experience changes in their health, family life or work. Some may discover the program isn’t what they expected. If you withdraw there is no refund.
That said, you may find it helpful to talk with one of us before you make a decision to drop. We can’t do much about the details of your life and we’re not in a position to offer advice that would be very useful. However, we do know the program and what adjustments may be possible that would allow you to complete STP.
On the other hand — What can lead to me being dropped from the program?
