Parish Leadership Day plans to help leaders with volunteer support

By KATIE LEFEBVRE, Globe staff reporter
April 13, 2006

The Offices of Youth and Young Adult Ministry and Catechesis for the Diocese of Sioux City are sponsoring a Parish Leadership Day for people in the diocese.

The leadership day will be from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on May 8 at Camp Okoboji. The presenter for the day will be Ann Marie Eckert, coordinator of youth ministry services for the Center for Ministry Development.

"All people who work with ministry have volunteers," said Jessica La Fleur, director of youth and young adult ministry for the diocese. "I think our diocese depends strongly on volunteers. A lot of times, the leaders are volunteers so they don't necessarily know how to train and maintain."

Eckert presented the Effective Practices in Youth Ministry Workshop earlier this year at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake. She is the author of "Ministry Resources for Community Life" and "Ministry Resources for Youth Leadership Development" in the Total Youth Ministry series.

"This is more of a broad-based workshop, dealing with volunteers," said La Fleur. "While it comes from a youth ministry perspective, it is for anyone who works with volunteers and how we can lead volunteers."

The workshop will give practical and specific help to assist parishes in creating a leadership system that will support the ministries. The leadership day will focus on the skills and techniques needed to create and sustain a leadership system for the parish or a specific ministry.

La Fleur pointed out that sometimes there is a group of about four or five families in a parish that are the ones always volunteering and helping out.

"This leadership day will help us learn how to reach out to get new people in and maintain the ones we've got," said La Fleur. "Then also help them see the wider picture of the ministry and the mission of the church within that context."

Topics for the day include developing and communicating an empowering mindset for youth ministry; utilizing tools for helping adult leaders discover/discern their gifts and be supported as they minister; developing role descriptions that excite and connect people's gifts to ministry needs; and utilizing strategies for inviting, preparing and nurturing adults in ministry.

The Parish Leadership Day is an opportunity to gather with others in the diocese who have similar leadership roles including pastors, school teachers, youth ministry coordinators, DREs and anyone who needs volunteers to help in ministry.

La Fleur encourages anyone who works with volunteers to attend.

"If you work with volunteers and you want to keep them energized without wearing them out, this will be a great workshop for you to attend," said La Fleur. "If you don't know how to ask people, if you are coming up short for anything, if you are calling people at the last minute a lot, this will be a great workshop for you to attend."

Cost for the day is $25. The deadline for registration is April 19 and can be sent to the Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry, PO Box 3379, Sioux City, IA 51102.