Roles, Responsibilities and Functions in Our Parish

I hope that this headline grabbed your attention because people’s different roles, responsibilities and functions have on my heart for some time. As you (hopefully) well know, we’re working towards having 70% or worshipping parishioners involved in disciple-making ministry. “Hang on Fr Josh, you have previously just said ‘involved in ministry,’ not disciple-making ministry.” While I did say this, if the commission for those who are baptised is to “Go, and make disciples” (Mt 29:19), however, then it behoves each and every baptised person to cultivate a curiosity and openness of heart to how we can carry out their baptismal commission.

In a large and geographically diverse parish such as ours, identifying roles, responsibilities and functions in the parish in vitally important for our capacity to carry out our Mission: to be a vibrant community that actively accompanies people to encounter Jesus. These different roles, responsibilities and functions in the parish necessarily extent to those in both lay and ordained leadership. In this vein, I would like to share some important information with you with regards to some emerging structures of leadership in the parish – structures which will not only improve communication and the flow of information, but will assist in facilitating our commission as a baptised persons as well as our Mission as a parish.

My starting point in creating these structures was the necessity for myself, as the Parish Priest, to be free from roles and responsibilities that I do not need to/shouldn’t be performing such as property/maintenance conversations and associated administration, filtering my emails (many of which can and should be answered by someone else with the right level of responsibility), and being the primary problem solver in the office. Being free from these roles and responsibilities will allow me to function according to my primary roles as an ordained priest: preaching (and preparing for preaching), celebrating sacraments, and raising up both existing and new leaders.

The structures I’m in the process of implementing – all in conversation with my Senior Leadership Team and Parish Finance Council – are, as this time, three-fold: first, I have hired an additional parish secretary, Erin Osborne, to join our wonderful team of Vicki Howard and volunteers in the parish office. Second, Don Rolls has generously accepted my invitation to the role of Volunteer Operations Manager for the next six months. This role carries my authority to make most operational and financial decisions, which, in turn, are reported to and signed off by me. Third, I am in the process of hiring a full time Mission Coordinator. This role will develop into a primary lay-leadership position in the parish to assist us, each one of us, in carrying our baptismal commission as well as our parish’s Mission (more about this soon)!

Friends, with the addition of these three new roles, we are moving into a new season in the life of our parish. Each of these three roles will allow other new and existing parish roles and leadership structures to flourish because more support leads to more growth. May the different roles, responsibilities and functions each of us have been gifted by God grow and develop as we continue to say “Yes” to God’s invitation to become a vibrant community that actively accompanies people to encounter Jesus.

Peace and blessings,

Fr. Josh