Ministers juggle multiple demands: serving GOd in church has helped them to see that they also serve God in their non-church daily life activities

National Catholic Reporter, Jan 23, 1998 by Art Winter

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Tony Butel opened the Parish Life Summer Institute here by juggling three balls, then letting them fall and suggesting to the 140 parish ministers present that they could get the most out of the institute by doing the same with their cares and concerns.

While no doubt good advice, Butel, on the staff of the Center for Pastoral Life and Ministry of the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese, also provided a metaphor for the life and work of lay ministers in Catholic parishes. In a word, they have to be jugglers.

The nature and scope of lay ministry is a hot issue in church politics these days, with the Vatican seeking to reign in the trend toward lay collaboration in ministry while the U.S. bishops struggle to understand and define it (NCR, Jan. 9). Meanwhile, the demands facing the church for ministries continues to grow, and lay people -- professionals and volunteers alike -- are stepping in to respond.

To make things even more complex, many voices in the church would argue that every lay person -- indeed, every Catholic -- is a "minister" in the sense that any human act can be a ministry if performed in the spirit of the gospel. For example, Capuchin Fr. Jack Rathschmidt and his colleague Gaynell Cronin, both speakers at the institute, are championing the notion of "home church" in which parents are the primary ministers.

But it's in parishes where lay ministry is the most visible, and here the juggling that lay people do takes place on a practical level. How do you balance the demands of home and work with the desire to serve in the church? That's a perennial problem for volunteers. Also, volunteers often struggle with not feeling qualified, while trying to find time for a class or institute that will better prepare them.

For those who are paid, there's always the danger of being fired, with little or no recourse. Others find themselves in entirely new situations, trying to forge ministries that no one, lay or ordained, has filled before. Turnover remains a common problem, both for paid parish staff members and the volunteers they recruit.

Ways of serving God

Despite such difficulties, interviews conducted during the institute with lay ministers, both paid and unpaid, show that many of them enjoy parish ministry, feel God calls them to it and say it adds meaning to their lives. Some also said serving God in church has helped them to see that they also serve God in their non-church daily life activities, whether regarded as ministry or not.

In her 26 years as a director of religious education, Gaynell Cronin said she remains astonished at the generosity of the lay people who volunteer for parish ministry. She seemed to be speaking of Joanne Thompson of Louisburg, Kan., a wife, mother of four children still living at home, an administrative assistant at a bank, a third-grade religious education teacher who feels she needs to know more and a prime example of a juggling lay minister.

The desire to learn more, she said, was so strong she decided to attend the institute even though she had to pay her own way and work at the bank three of the institute's four days. That meant she could attend only the evening sessions and had to commute 90 miles round-trip. The evening sessions broke up at 9:30, and she had to be back at the bank at 8:00 in the morning.

Explaining why she was putting herself through such a schedule, she said, "The students we teach become our children."

She recounted an experience to show what she meant. A man in her parish committed suicide. Two years before, the man's son, Brandon, was in her third-grade class. "I love this little boy," she said. "I had grown close to him. As his religion teacher, what was I going to tell him? What words of inspiration? What words of comfort?"

She found a book of children's prayers and bought it. Together with another religion teacher who had also taught a child of the family, she went to the funeral. "All I could do," Thompson said, "was put my arms around him and say, `Brandon, I love you very, very much, and I brought you this book to remind you never to lose faith.'"

While Thompson shows compassion for children in her ministry, Jim Reynolds of Independence, Mo., a Kansas City suburb, does the same for adults -- homeless adults. Last fall, his parish, St. Anne's, organized the Community of Salt and Light to pursue social justice. Their first project: On the third Saturday of every month, they take in the overflow from a Salvation Army homeless shelter and provide a hot meal and a night's shelter at the church. "We spend the evening with them," Reynolds said. "We have TV and games, but lots of times they just want to talk. That's probably the most rewarding part -- the fact that they want to invite us into their lives."

Reynolds directs a not-for-profit agency providing services for mentally retarded children so they can remain in their families. Asked if his parish ministry for the homeless spilled over into his work with retarded people, he said, "Not only the retarded, but also within my family. I am learning to see Jesus in everybody."