Ministry
Development: Case Study Method
Ministry
Development: Case Study Method
A proven method to increase awareness, allow experiential sharing and promote healthy ministerial leader behaviors is by using the Case Study method. PLCG has developed a series of case studies based on common and realistic scenarios intended to synthesize the leadership training objectives from each instructional block, and foster group discussion. A sample Case Study, with associated questions, is presented below.
At St. Catherine's parish, George Cantore is responsible to the pastor for preparing, scheduling and evaluating lectors for the weekend masses. George is in his mid 50's, of Italian descent, an insurance salesman supervisor, married for 23 years, and his two kids are in college in another state. He has been leading this ministry for over 8 years, and has 19 active lectors, which he meets with every Saturday at 10:00AM in the ministry room of the main church. The Saturday meetings are crucial to the success of the ministry, since that's the day all lectors get ready for the Sunday masses.
But today, George feels he ran out of patience with one of his lectors, Martha Alvarez. In reviewing last year's performance, he noticed that Martha had only come to 12 meetings, whereas the average number of meetings per lector is 38.3 out of the year (52 meetings). Since Martha joined the ministry, she has never attended any of the three-day retreats specially tailored to the ministry, nor has she ever attended the yearly diocesan gathering of lectors.
George decides to conduct a small investigation before addressing the issue with Martha. He checks the parish database to see if Martha is maybe tied up with another ministry, but finds that it is not the case. Martha is in her late 20's, a mother of 4 children (oldest is 6 years of age), and her husband is an air conditioning repair technician. A few days later he calls Tony Mancuso (the second lector at the same Mass Martha normally attends) and asks if he has noticed anything strange in her performance. But Tony says he hasn't observed anything out of the ordinary. George asks around the parish if anyone knows what's happening with Martha, but ends up empty handed. Yet he knows that Martha is one of the best readers at St. Catherine. She is reliable once she is on the schedule, but she just does not come to the meetings with the rest of the lectors.
"This is intolerable", says George. "I know she is liked, she reads well at the 5:30PM Mass on Sunday, and enjoys her ministry, but she needs to get with the program or I'll have to ask her to leave the ministry and go find something else."
1. What approach would you recommend George take in dealing with Martha?
2. What elements do you think are missing in George's analysis of Martha's situation?
3. What do you think is right and is wrong with George's approach to managing the ministry assigned to him?
4. What ministerial objectives are in contradiction with "business" objectives in this case study?
5. Share with your table group any similar situations you may have experienced in your ministry service, how you dealt with the situation, and what were some of the consequences of your actions.