Catholic Ministry Professionals
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Catholic Ministry Professionals
Leadership is an Act of Charity - December 24, 2026
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Most parish leaders are sincere, hardworking, and prayerful — yet still feel scattered and reactive. In this episode, Jon and Thai unpack why renewed energy isn’t the solution. Clear priorities are.
Drawing from Matthew 9:36, they explore how compassion without direction leaves people disoriented — like sheep without a shepherd. Leadership clarity isn’t a buzzword; it’s an act of charity.
This episode walks through a simple but demanding framework:
- Discern what God is doing in your heart.
- Decide what actually matters most right now.
- Shepherd your people clearly and consistently toward it.
They also break down practical meeting rhythms that reduce chaos, increase accountability, and move teams from data-dumping to decision-making.
If your parish feels busy but unfocused, this conversation offers a concrete path forward.
The show is sponsored by Briar Cliff University.
Before we begin, we just want to let you know that Catholic Ministry Professionals is brought to you by Briar Cliff University. Briar Cliff provides a vibrant community, top-notch faculty, and cutting-edge programs that empower you to reach your full potential. So whether you're pursuing a degree in business, healthcare, or the arts, Briar Cliff can provide an environment where you can thrive. Learn more at Briarcliff.edu to start your transformative academic experience. And now, on with the show.
SPEAKER_02I'm Tyhua here with my co-host John Cons, and this is the Catholic Ministry Professionals Podcast, the Leadership Development Podcast for Catholic churches. Today, we're discussing clear priorities to do more for a parish than renewed motivation. John, how are you?
SPEAKER_00I'm good. Yeah, we are going to dive into it today. I was just at a workshop with a parish this last week. And one of the key things that that we really landed on with the pastor and with the team is that while they do want like renewed motivation, they they want to feel like they're about something and kind of get that parish renewal going, what they realized they had to do was set some really clear priorities. And if they did that, it would do more for a parish than just you know renewing their their energy and their motivation, because clear priorities allow us to be disciplined. They allow us to chase after something. And so that's what we're going to talk about today. Like if your parish feels a little scattered, if you feel like everything is important and everybody's ministry is urgent and you're constantly reacting instead of leading, this conversation is going to be for you.
SPEAKER_02Let's do it. I think I'm part of that.
SPEAKER_00You're a part of that. This might help you too in your work. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, and and I want to say that too, in the sense that most parish leaders are really sincere. They're prayerful, they are working hard, but they do feel unfocused. They feel like they're just reacting to things. And honestly, everybody's got a big opinion and everything's equally important. So the issue, it's not effort, it's not motivation. The issue here is a lack of clear priorities stemming from a discernment of what God is calling us to do. When when leaders don't name their priorities, the parish is going to wander. The people are going to wander. And this is reflected here in scripture as well. And so I want to take kind of just like a grounding, really a grounding anchor for us from scripture. And this comes from Matthew chapter 9, verse 36, where it says that Jesus has compassion on the crowds because they're like sheep without a shepherd. And so we need to understand that compassion doesn't replace direction, right? Shepherds don't just care. Jesus didn't just care. He stepped in as shepherd to lead. And when we as leaders fail to name the priorities, to point the direction out, people aren't being rebellious when they don't participate in their programs. They're just, they're just disoriented, they're disorganized, they're not tied into anything because nothing is coming forward as this is for me. This is the direction we're going, and this is why. And so we really want to look at that today. We want our parishioners who are waiting to feel like they're being guided because leadership clarity, it's not just some kind of buzzword. It's an act of charity to step in and to lead, to step in to guide, to meet our parishers where they are, but then to lead them forward in the direction that God has called us to go. How does that sound for today, Ty?
SPEAKER_02Sounds good. What do you got for us?
SPEAKER_00Well, we're going to look at the three things. All right. And the three things for today, we want to go through this process of discernment, decision, and then intentional shepherding. And you'll notice that this marries, it kind of mirrors, I should say, our framework in Catholic ministry professionals of pray, plan, and lead. Discernment. One key thing in discernment that we miss all the time. We go, we go to our prayer and we hang out and we sit with God and we pray, and maybe we feel one way or another. But one thing that we need to do is to name what God is doing before we name what we need to do. Right? You might go to prayer, you might sit and pray, but then you show up and you just get about doing the things of the parish. But before we even do that, we need to sit down. Before somebody even comes into our office and says, hey, I've got this idea I want to throw it before you, before we decide to go forward with anything, we need to understand what God is calling us to do specifically. And I think about St. Francis, right? St. Francis had this really moment where he heard God tell him to rebuild his church. And so he went out and started building a church. But it turned out he was called to more than that. You know, but before he started doing that, he had that calling. He had discerned, like, I am called to rebuild the church. And the way he stepped out and did that were these moments of faith, that when they were led by this discernment, by this clear call, then he could clearly do concrete things that led towards what's been this momentous fruit, which is the order of the Franciscans. I see this as well in Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. As you know, if you're a regular listener of the podcast, this is a story that's dear and near to my heart. Philip wakes up one morning and the Lord tells him to go to this street, right? A very clear direction. So Philip, he doesn't just sit around, he goes. Right? And then when he gets there, he's got another moment of decision. He sees probably all kinds of people passing by, but then there's this eunuch who's reading from Isaiah. And Philip hears the voice again, go with him. And so he responds to that specific call and he goes and does that thing. Right. And then while they're there, then the conversation flows, and Philip, you know, he ends up baptizing this guy, and it becomes this great, fruitful thing, and then the eunuch goes on and Philip is immediately called somewhere else. Right? This all starts with discernment, and discernment begins in the interior life of the leader. But if we don't stop, if we don't slow things down, if we don't sit before the Lord and discern direction, then when we go out, we won't know where to go. We don't know what to say yes to or what to say no to. But we do know yet that the interior life of prayer, a deep interior life of prayer, is the source from which our direction comes. So without again slowing down and taking the time, it's gonna be really easy to confuse noise for direction, or to just really to confuse busyness for fruitful production, or to confuse busyness for discipleship. So I want to throw out a few guiding questions that I have found to be really helpful for discernment. And the and the two questions that that are really helpful that I have seen the fruit in my own life is what is God doing in my heart right now? Again, it is true that the bedrock of fruitful ministry is a deep interior life of prayer. And that's that seminal book that comes up, it's the uh interior life of I don't know, what is it? It's a Jean-Baptiste Chau Tard and the Heart of the Apostolate. And he talks about how the fruit, like the actual bedrock of fruitful ministry, is the interior life of prayer, which means that any fruit that you bear in your ministry is going to be an outflow of what God is doing in and through you. And so you need to be able to kind of put voice to and name what God is doing in your heart right now and to share that with people. Like that's like the bare minimum. That's it, that's a shallow end of the pool. If you share what God is doing in your heart, that's evangelization in itself. God is doing this in me. And when that resonates with other people, that opens a threshold to discipleship. So the first thing is to spend time really thinking about trying to put words to what is God doing in my heart right now, right? Where is he inviting me to deeper obedience or trust? What is the thing he's doing? And when you do that, then you have this really solid footing then for translating that into how do we respond as a parish, right? Discernment again, even as a parish and everything, we we have to realize that that there's a real authority here, right? Our pastors are the authority to say, hey, this is what God is doing, to discern that and to translate to the people. That's that's just a prophetic office of the Christian life. God is doing this right now and proclaiming that for people so they have a vision to follow. That it's it's simple attentiveness to the Lord. It's what the prophets of old did, is what King David did, right? He listened to the Lord. And then when the Lord said go, David went, right? And when you do this with regularity, when you do this on purpose, when you spend the time, you're gonna really gain interior clarity. You're gonna see themes, you're gonna see repeated patterns as you do this over time. And then that clarity, that clarity transitions into authority. When you can clearly state the thing that God is doing here and now and it resonates in people's heart, that establishes a level of authority that again, pastors, you have. And I would even say, right, co-workers in the vineyard, that great, that great uh document from our Catholic bishops in the United States, it talks about how we're called into leadership alongside our pastors as well. And so if you're listening to this and you're like, well, my pastor's not there, you can still be there and you're called to a level of leadership in the parish, and you have the same prophetic office to sit with the Lord, to hear where he's calling you to go, and then to proclaim for people that this is where we are headed and this is why. Ty, what do you see happen when the leadership in an organization doesn't know what their clear priorities, their clear objectives are?
SPEAKER_02Absolute chaos. Chaos chaos or also toxic work environments, backbiting. You get, and maybe this is more on the secular side, right? You have those meetings, and I've I've worked in a company that was pretty toxic, which I won't name the name of the company, but you have these Teams meetings or Zoom meetings, and you can tell from a leader's perspective, right? Like you can sense that your attendees, your team that are in the meeting, as you're giving directives, as you're talking about scenarios, as you're doing your, you know, whatever you're supposed to be doing with your team, giving directives, you can tell that they're doubting you in their eye. You can tell that, hey, they, you know, they're uh predisposed or they're they're texting on their phone during the meeting, and they're talking to somebody else that's in the meeting, probably saying, Hey, this guy has no idea what he's talking about. This gal has no idea what she's talking about, she's disconnected from reality, she has no idea about you know our plight in our roles, right? So when you have that chaos and that toxic work environment, it leads to very bad fruit, right? A bad tree is gonna give bad fruit, if any fruit at all. So I think it's super important to just kind of understand like what's going on if you don't have a good leader, if you don't have the proper communications, if you don't have a let's figure it out uh mentality.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And I it like it again, it it gives clarity to everybody, and that clarity has to precede authority. And when somebody starts leading clearly, people are drawn to that, aren't they? 100%.
SPEAKER_02And what I would say is as a leader, you are not the, you know, um, what is it? Um it's not that you can't do any wrong. The benefit of having clear directives, that's that same goal, is if you start straying, your people can say, Whoa, wait a sec. You're telling me to do this, but I think it'll pull us away from what our initial goal was. And then we could have proper discussions without thinking, so you're doubting my leadership. It's like, no, actually, that's a great point you're bringing up. I had not thought of that. Or actually, I thought about it, and here's the the devil's advocate to that. Like, here's the the the negative that could happen from what you're proposing. Now we have proper dialogue, right? That we're not authoritarians as leaders. We are trying to do our best to lead our team to what we think is the the end goal. But if you don't have what we've talked previously of mission statements, visions, statements, if we don't have clear objectives, how do we know what we're doing? How do we trust that where I'm stepping into is going to lead me closer to that goal?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that leads us really into the second thing, which is that you have to decide. After discerning, you have to decide. And St. Francis de Sales, I mean, he makes this very clear that probably one of the most important parts of prayer is making a resolution to change, making a resolution to act more specifically. That if you you've been praying, you've been sitting with the Lord, you feel this thing stirring in your heart, this invitation, then you have to act on it. And you you, you know, in the spiritual life, in your personal life, it's, you know, what what decisions are gonna lead me to grow in virtue versus the opportunity to grow in vice, right? And and in institutionally, okay, well, what behaviors do we see that we need to modify, right? Again, resolution to act. If we're called, if we're called to communion, that's this parish, that's the word they settled on that they're like, we're called, you know, we've got all these different churches that are part of our one parish. We're called to communion. Well, okay, then identify the behavior that happens in your parishioners that you need to start speaking into, that you need to change a process so they can't behave that way anymore, right? It it gives what we need to do then is translate that discernment into things that are clear priorities. And sometimes those priorities are process changes. Sometimes those props priorities might be doing one of your programs or one of your offerings differently, right? But either way, that this vision can't stay in the abstract, this the you know, this perception of in prayer, this discernment, it can't stay abstract. It has to turn into concrete actions. So leaders have to be able from then that discernment of like this is the thing, this is the one thing. We have to decide from that what matters most right now. And it might not be children's liturgy of the word, it might not be having a nativity play this year, it might be something different. It might be saying, actually, instead of doing some one big parish mission, we're gonna set aside on Sundays, or I'm the pastor, I'm gonna be in the church, and I want to pray with you. So instead of doing whatever you would normally do at that time, come in and pray with me, and we're gonna discern together how we can move forward. We're gonna learn to pray, we're gonna learn to listen to the Lord's voice and respond to it together. So you have to be able then from that clear priority that God has for you, that clear discernment, you have to decide what matters most and what matters less, right? Even if it's a good thing, it can be a very good thing, but if it matters less, if it's not gonna lead towards this thing that God has called you to, then it needs to be maybe delayed for now, or it needs to have a more in-depth conversation before moving forward. And here's a couple questions then that can help you to kind of filter those priorities, right? Two simple questions. God is probably calling you. One, he's he's doing something in your heart, and he's doing that so you can respond to the poverty of your community. And that poverty might not be financial, it might be spiritual or something, but he's doing something in your heart so that you can respond to your parish's unique poverty. So here's the two questions to help you filter what are the priorities when anybody comes to you, that the KCs want to add another fish fry into the calendar or another pancake breakfast. Ask, does this align with what God is doing in my heart? That's the first question. Right? We said that above. Does this align with what God is doing in my heart? And the second question, does this respond to our parish's unique poverty? If the answer to either of those is no, one, it needs to be refined. If the answer to both both of those is no, then you got to just cut it out. It's not the right thing for right now. Without this filter, without this filter, everything can feel important, especially when somebody comes in and their heart is breaking for this one thing. But the problem is if everything's important, nothing is going to get done well. Amen.
SPEAKER_02Amen.
SPEAKER_00All right. Now, the other side of this, the upside of this, right? The results of clear discernment and clear decision, right, is that everything gets simpler. These decisions get simpler. Over time, you're gonna get really good at this. The decisions are simpler, and the things we offer as a parish can get simpler. I remember joining at working at a parish and they had been going through like a year-long process of writing down all the names of all the ministries in the parish and all of the contacts for those ministries, and they got this nice, you know, bound book and it put it out as the ministry handbook. The problem was it was on paper and it was a year later. And by that time, by the time they got it printed, half of those ministries had different leaders, right? And and that so it became this great, it was a decent work, but it was time that was wasted. And having a clear priority filter could have helped. Additionally, if I come into a new parish and they say, here's 80 ministries you could sign up for, that's overwhelming. I'm going to take that handbook, I'm gonna go over here and drop it in my circular file drawer. And that's the trash can for those of you that were wondering. Because it's too much, right? So we need to simplify. And if we do the things God calls us to do, it will align all of those pieces. Saying no becomes possible, it becomes simple because you're you're saying no, not just to say no, but to invite them into something greater, right? And meetings shift from data dumps, maybe debate, to direction, to decision, right? So we have to be able to have that clarity, have that direction, have the discernment so that we can make clear decisions so that we as a parish team, as a parish staff, can move into the third part, um, the third thing that we're gonna talk about today, which is shepherding. Any thoughts on that before I move on, Ty?
SPEAKER_01No, keep going. Nothing. I nailed it in there all going.
SPEAKER_00Nailed it. It ties along for the ride. All right. So after we've discerned, we've made some decisions, we've got some clarity, then we need to shepherd. And this is where decision we we discerned decisions are made here, and then it goes out. And like Jesus, we have compassion on the people who are like sheep without a shepherd. And I believe that many of our parishes feel this way. Many of our parishioners feel this way. They're in a parish, they don't have any actual tangible relationship with their pastor, right? They may not have any actual tangible relationship with anybody on the staff. And they feel like and and for there's no lack of desire on their part, they're all well-intentioned, but they have no pathway forward. And so what we need is to become more intentional shepherds. We need to guide people clearly and consistently. And and shepherding requires repetition, right? It requires clarity, it requires follow-through, right? The sheep follow the shepherd's voice because by repetition they have learned to hear it. They have learned to recognize it. They're very clear about the fact that this shepherd, he always leads us to food, he always leads us to water. Whenever there's danger, he steps in between, he steps in the gap, right? There's this follow-through from this taking care of to protecting, right? And that it goes on and on again. It's a repetition, clarity, and follow-through that they do that. Leaders have to be able to say, you have to clearly say over and over and over again to your parishioners, this is where we're going and why. This is what we are focusing on right now, and this is why. And it's that call back to your discernment above. This is what God is doing in our community. All right. And I want to invite you into that with me to follow what God is doing here. And that's so much, that hits so much deeper in the heart of the person listening than this is the cultural topic that's most on the forefront of my mind right now, right? This is the most important thing that, you know, the slabs are. This is the document the bishops put out. No, here in our community, these things are going on, yes. God is calling us to this. Won't you come with me? Right? So, so you gotta just do this really practical process of of praying, right? Discerning, of deciding, and then shepherding your people in the process of using your prophetic office, your priestly office, your kingly office, then to lead them. And and what'll happen when you do that is you're going to see that over time, people are going to adopt that language. They're going to understand that language. It's going to kind of steep in the culture there. It's going to impregnate the culture with just the reality that God has spoken. And he's using you to guide them closer to himself. And trust is going to grow through that. Parish energy is going to, like, it's going to consolidate and get laser focused and go the same direction instead of being spread thin and scattered in all these different directions. So again, we have to discern, we have to decide, and then we have to intentionally shepherd. And so I want to give you some really practical pieces that you can implement if you're a pastor or a ministry leader, to really advocate for in your parish and specifically with your team so that we can get good at this process of discernment, of decision, and then shepherding. And so we want to uh implement just a simple meeting rhythm, do a couple specific meetings. And I know what you're thinking, I'm not saying add more meetings, I'm saying have better meetings more often, right? And so one of the things that we can do that I think would really help us a lot is to not just have the weekly team meeting where once a week we're together and putting our together, but to strive after a daily check-in. If you can't do it daily, you know, you you've got part-time people, you've got, you know, maybe you're a huge parish, maybe you're a small parish, I don't know what your particular role is. But to establish different, smaller, like very like intentionally tactical meetings that you're going to have daily, ideally, but you know, maybe two or three times a week outside the weekly team meeting. These are this is a standing meeting. It takes 10 to 15 minutes tops, and all you're really doing is re establishing what you're working on today. And then if you need anybody's help to get your job done, that's your your chance on the team to say, hey, I need this one thing from Father, I need this one thing from Ethel, or I need this one thing from Joe or Dave, you know, and I need this now. And that creates these moments where you're together. What this avoids then is the where you walk in in the morning and you spend 45 minutes talking to everybody and getting your coffee and seeing what's going on. No, it's it's again very laser focused. Hey, these are the things that I need to get done today. Father, I need you to sign this, right? Ethel, I need you to get me the numbers from the weekend, whatever it might be. That's your tactical moment. Like I need this now. And it avoids the running around trying to catch someone at the right moment, avoids trying to catch Father when he's between the 14 meetings he has to be at and all that stuff. No, this is a concrete time. I know I'm going to meet with these people. I could ask this question, I can get this answer, I can make this decision right now, and it leverages things forward without taking up a ton of time. What it does take is the commitment to that one time. All right. Outside of that, taking your weekly team meeting and making it effective. It does with this parish, and I started talking about the weekly team meeting. And when I started talking about the stereotypes of how bad in meetings can are can be, father's eyes were down at his desk and nobody was looking at hit, like nobody would look each other in the eye. It's the unsaid thing that we all wish we did better that nobody knows how to fix. And so we're just going to give you a couple like bullet point pieces of what an effective weekly team meeting should look like. And the first thing, the first shift that we have to make, again, we don't have to take more time, but the first shift that we have to make is that this meeting is about making decisions. If it's a data dump, it goes in an email. If it's two people, and this used to drive me nuts at one of my previous parishes, the uh the liturgy planner and the pre pastor would spend the first 20 minutes of the meeting going over his calendar, which had nothing to do with me or anyone else in the room, right? Those things don't belong in the weekly team meeting. Those things should be an aside meeting at a separate time. And again, if you do this, yeah, it sounds like you're adding another meeting, but all you're really doing is becoming more efficient with your time. Because that main team meeting will probably get smaller if you don't have all this extra stuff just piled in there. Or you say, hey, the team meeting, like I'm gonna meet with this person at this time, the team meeting starts 15 minutes later, right? These are simple ways to fix this problem where people just feel like they're sitting around doing nothing. Decisions belong in the weekly team meeting. Data dumps belong in an email. And then every decision has an owner with a deadline and personal responsibility to follow up at the next meeting. And if you do those three things, you're gonna have a lot more effective team meetings. Thoughts on that top?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, cadence of accountability is is so crucial. Like if you're not held accountable to what you say you're gonna do, then why are we saying it? You're just wasting everybody's time.
SPEAKER_00How do you feel about um personal accountability versus somebody on the team being responsible for calling you out for not being accountable or not following through on something?
SPEAKER_02I think there has to be buy-in from the team. Like, hey, we we're we're all doing this, right? If we don't have that buy-in, then it becomes like, oh, it's just another thing that my boss or or you know my pastor says we have to do. It's like, no, if this were a sport, if I'm not going to, you know, let's take the Super Bowl, right? We just have the Super Bowl, which funny enough, the last three super bowl last three Super Bowls that the Seattle Seahawks have won coincides with the new Pope that the Catholic Church has. Anyways, aside from that, if if I am not going to block from my running back, and my running back gets stuffed, or if I'm not gonna block from my quarterback and my quarterback gets sacked, do you think that the quarterback has a personal responsibility to call out me as the lineman that didn't do his assignment? Why? Because we have a goal to advance the ball, whether that's for a you know first down or for a touchdown, right? The goal is unified. We are trying to march the football down the the field, and if you don't do your job, we don't get to advance the ball down the field like we want. Well, what is the goal for the team within ministry? What is it what exactly are we trying to do? And if you aren't doing your job, I cannot do mine. So therefore, the personal accountability isn't just a hey, you said you're gonna do it and you didn't do it, what's going on? It should be, hey, last week you said you're gonna do this and you didn't, and because you didn't do that, I couldn't do my job. And it's been the case with the last couple of weeks where I've had to chase you down and things just kept getting pushed, you know, down the road. That the can gets kicked down the road, so to speak. Is there something that's holding you back from that cat that I can help you with or that somebody in this meeting can help you with? Actually, there is. I can't do it because this is happening, right? And maybe somebody else in that meeting can can shed light on it. Oh, the reason that's happening is because you didn't fill the right forms, you didn't follow up with the right people, whatever it is. And now we're getting stuff done. Accountability sounds like it's a bad thing. It sounds like you're calling somebody out for the sake of calling them out, but accountability is just simply saying that I'm going to do what I'm gonna do for the better um purpose, for the the larger cause at hand. So I think personal accountability coincides with that mission and that vision statement. If you don't have that, well, why have any accountability?
SPEAKER_00And this is, I mean, this is something that's really central to cat like the Catholic faith. This idea that it's not just me and Jesus, right? My my sins, my virtues, they both add to and harm or harm the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_02Amen.
SPEAKER_00Right. So that's why we have the the personal but also the corporate worship. We also have personal, but also the corporate reality of sin. That's why we have the sacrament of reconciliation. This is like this is just an extension of that reality, but lived out in the work that you do day in and day out in the vineyard. And so if you're if you're not there serving with the team as a part of that body, you're hurting the team. And so there's a reality that that the accountability that has to be built into it. And I think that's one of those rhythms that has to be in the weekly team meeting as an opportunity. And nobody likes that. We're in the Midwest, that Midwest nice. Everybody, nobody wants to call someone out, nobody wants to hurt anyone's feelings. But if it's just a rhythm of how we get things done effectively, it's not a personal attack, it's just a reality that, hey, you need to do this so we can do this. That that's just a part of living life. That happens in my family, right? My my wife and I have these conversations all the time. Hey, when you do X, it affects me in this way. Can we consider doing I instead? You know, that that's just living together. That's just life. And it and it's steeped in our faith as well.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think you brought up a good point too. It's like, and and maybe you weren't intending to, but if you can't handle accountability, we have a different issue. Right? Like, if if you can't handle the fact that you're being held to a standard that you set, right? If you said you were gonna do something and you didn't do it, and now me calling you out, um, and that sounds bad, but like me just bringing up saying, Hey, you said you were gonna do X and you didn't do it. And if you get mad at that, like you have to take a closer look. You I think you've got to restart this process and discerning, like, it's gonna sound harsh, but why are you working here?
unknownRight?
SPEAKER_02If you're just gonna cause issues within the team that is trying to live out faithfully your vocation, like brother, you got a whole nother thing. Like, you got some probably some personal issues that you need to take it take care of and take a closer look at.
SPEAKER_00This is something that comes out when when I do sessions on like discernment, vision, and then like taking action from that vision. You see very clearly like the stereotypes of different positions in the parish, like a facilities person. We just need somebody that can manage the facilities, they can mow the lawns, can do all that stuff, but they don't understand that they are their job is is intended to evangelize people. Right? That that's that's the role of the church. Now, that's not everybody. There's definitely people who understand that, but they don't understand that their work is connected to that. And that that happens in a lot of finance offices and things like that, too. There's people who love the church, but they don't think it's their job to evangelize. And what these what this does when you as pastor discern and then decide a direction and share that with your team and call them into it, then when that happens, it becomes very clear who who's not quite there yet. But the the piece of that is too, like father, you know, pastor, uh, people on the leadership team, you have to be discipled, right? You don't need just a warm body to help run the parish. You need disciples that are building the kingdom through these particular offices in the church, these particular places in the in your church, right? These these particular positions. And so there's there's just a need to realize that all of this is related and it stems again from that prayerful discernment. And when you do that, things will surface that are real issues that you will have to deal with because they they either do build the body or they tear down the body. And so we have to make real decisions around that then and choose an action forward. Ideally, you can disciple somebody and bring them deeper into that mission, that ministry, but if they refuse to go there, that says something too, and that needs a decision in a reality that's not going to be comfortable.
SPEAKER_02Can I just add one thing to my comment about accountability? Sure. I think it's super important that we have to have this humility. If we're called out, because I'll tell you this sometimes I forget. Sometimes I get caught up in the whirlwind of the day, right? 40x principles, and I hope I get called out. Hey, Ty, you said you were gonna do this and you didn't. You know what? That's my bad. I completely spaced out, I ran out of time, I was so busy with XYZ offer. I'm hitting the mic like John. I'm gonna put my hand up to say, I screwed up. Please forgive me, I'll do better next time. That's this the spirit of accountability. But if you face accountability with defiance, now we have a a serious issue, right? Like, hey, don't you don't call me out, Ethel. You forgot to do this, this, this, and this too. So don't let's not start with me and let's not even start talking about and then you get into personal attacks and all that other stuff. That's not what that meeting is for. The meeting is to, you know, in my football analogy is to move the field, the football down the field, right? To to advance the mission of the church or the parish or whatever the ministry. So have that humility in your in those meetings, in your mistakes, right? If you get called out, maybe just raise your hand to say, I'm sorry. Yep, you're right, versus being defiant in that accountability.
SPEAKER_00And what you highlighted there is the difference between healthy conflict, which says, here's this where this thing broke down, how do we fix it, versus unhealthy conflict, which says it's just finger pointing, right? Or even potentially, potentially even worse is just conflict avoidance altogether. Which which I think is maybe more the way that teams would tend in a parish, is in my experience, is that they would avoid the conflict of saying, hey, didn't you weren't you gonna do this? You didn't do it. Now where do we go from there? So yeah, absolutely. Those are very important things. Now, flowing from the weekly team meeting, we talked about the we talked about the daily check-in, we talked about the weekly team meeting, and I would say at least twice a year, then you also want to have just like a like a biannual, like a vision, like a discernment clarification meeting where you're gonna get together for half a day, you're gonna work through discernment, some decisions that need to be made, and then how you're gonna shepherd people into those. And and that's gonna be really important for you because what it does is it allows us to do exactly what Ty was just talking about, which is to recognize, well, maybe we s maybe we've kind of deviated from the plan a little bit, maybe we've gotten a little off course. Now we need to course correct. Let's get back on, you know, we got really excited about this, we tried to do 10 things instead of one, you know, and now we're scattered again. So let's circle the wagons, let's let's have this conversation again. We're gonna pray and discern together, we're gonna make some decisions, and then we're gonna shepherd our people into those decisions. And I think if you have that rhythm, that's gonna go a long way for you towards getting really past just wanting motivation, but into clear priorities that allowed us to build discipline around the thing that God has called us to do. Really, it's it's an obedience of faith flowing from that discernment to be obedient to that call to do the things that are gonna get us there.
SPEAKER_01So good.
SPEAKER_00All right, and I think with that we can move on to the devil's advocate. Dun dun.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I people aren't gonna change, John. They won't change how they meet, they won't change how they communicate, they're gonna default to their normal operating software. It just people are people, so wh why why do all this if they're just gonna revert back to what they're normally gonna do anyways?
SPEAKER_00Yes, and I feel this too. I have a tendency to think this way too. People are never gonna change, they're never gonna do that. I think that before I go to workshops with bearish teams, like, man, it'll be a miracle if we can get them to do anything different. Um but the reality is that people don't resist change because they don't want to change. They resist change because what they've seen is the way it's been done before, has been chaotic. It hasn't been clear and it's never been laid out for them. People don't, but people don't resist clarity. People love clarity, they love to have a direction to go. And the beautiful thing is if you're really leading from discernment, from prayer, from a deep interior life of prayer, it's gonna resonate with them. Like they're gonna be called into that. And so one leader modeling clarity of discernment, decision, and shepherding and input, it's gonna shift the culture. It shows and restores the reality of authority and how good that is, and it creates momentum over time. And the truth is, you may not be the pastor, your team might not be on board and like gunning to bring us in for a workshop. But you don't need, you don't personally need permission to lead in the capacity that God has called you to. And you what you do need is conviction rooted in prayer. You have to be having a deep interior life of prayer that allows you to discern clearly. It allows you to then make decisions flowing from that discernment, and it allows you to shepherd people towards that discerned reality, that vision that God wants to make reality in your parish.
SPEAKER_02You know, as you're talking about this uh discern, decide, and shepherd, it sounds awfully familiar and closely resembles your pray, plan, lead. And if you haven't read the book, go to the uh website and download that.
SPEAKER_00Catholic Ministry Professionals.com slash book. You ain't slick. It was intentional. Yes, absolutely. Pray, plan, lead. That's it's absolutely the same as discern, decide, and shepherd. Absolutely. So again, you don't need permission to lead, but you do need to be rooted in prayer and deeply convicted about being obedient to the call on your life. Amen.
SPEAKER_01Amen. Yeah, on the next episode we're gonna do think. What is it? Think hope. No, not hope. Pray hope. Pray hope and worry. Yeah, pray hope and do, or what something like that.
SPEAKER_02It's gonna be the same, same thing, same format, just different words.
SPEAKER_00You know what? There's uh Father Mike Schmidt's did a book with I think Jackie and Bobby Angel. I might have the the other two, but Father Mike Schmidt's it was pray, decide, and don't worry, or something like that. Yeah, absolutely. But I did not copy that. It's completely different. Do you have any actual steps for us? I do. Of course, we never want our listeners to leave our conversation day without something they can do to take action on it. So this way, I I want you to take a moment to just try to put into words, one sentence, what is God calling you to do in your parish? And from that, write down one to two priorities, one to two behaviors that you need to change in the parish in order to make that discernment come true, that thing that God is calling you to do to help that come true. And run it through that priority filter, right? You got to think about is this, does this relate to what God is calling me to do in my own heart? And does this solve the problem of our parish's biggest, like most prominent poverty? And if you I think if you do those two things, it's gonna give you a lot of clarity that will motivate you, but it also can help you to be more disciplined and more obedient to the call. And when you do that, God will bear fruit in your heart and in the work that you do. All right. And of course, if you want to talk these things through with us, you can always schedule a discovery call at Catholic Ministry Professionals.
SPEAKER_02And with that, we'll see you in the vineyard.
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