Professional Development Webinar Recordings

What happens when a new volunteer signs up to be a leader for young people in ministry? All over the country, people are signing up for this role, even now during the time of Covid-19. But how do ministry leaders help these volunteers understand that they’re doing much more than a once-a-week volunteer role? What moves an adult from signing up to help out to accompanying young people in their journey of faith? There’s no silver-bullet program that solves this for a volunteer, but there are principles that work for every program (even during a pandemic) that lead to forming young disciples. In this webinar, Paul Sifuentes and Jake Teitgen bring thirty years of youth ministry experience to the table to share the five key principles of small group leadership as they focus on people, not programs.

Mark Gray, senior research associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University, and Neil Parent, project director for Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership, for a presentation on the results of a nationally representative survey of parish leaders. This presentation is designed to provide a current view of the state of US parishes from those providing ministry and service in them. It also provides insight on where parish leaders are coming from with an eye toward the next generation. Special topics of focus include comparison of the views of parish leaders and parishioners in traditional parishes to those in parishes that are using multiple parish ministry, those with their pastoral care entrusted to a deacon or lay person under Canon 517.2, and those that have been involved mergers and closures. They also discuss multiculturalism in the parish.

Join Melissa Cidade, director of CARA's Pastoral Assistance Surveys and Services (PASS), and Neil Parent, project director for Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership for a presentation on the results of in-pew surveys of parishioners that participated in the Emerging Models project. These results provide an understanding of how parishioners view their parishes and how satisfied they are with them. Special topics of focus will include multiculturalism. They will also discuss comparison of the views of parish leaders and parishioners in traditional parishes to those in parishes that are using multiple parish ministry, those with their pastoral care entrusted to a deacon or lay person under Canon 517.2, and those that have been involved in mergers and closures.This webinar was moderated by Dianna Leinen, parish resources marketing specialist at Ave Maria Press. The Professional Development Webinar series is presented exclusively by Ave Maria Press in partnership with the National Conference for Catechetical Leadership and the National Association for Lay Ministry.