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Our Lady of Lourdes is seeking a well-rounded, dynamic individual to serve as Director of Formation & Outreach. As a member of Senior Staff, this person would work closely with the pastor and collaborate with staff and community members to embrace all God’s people, equip disciples, and accompany believers. The Director is expected to work alongside a diverse group of people, both paid staff and volunteers, implementing initiatives and building and leading teams to advance and nurture Christian discipleship of the parish community.
CORE COMPETENCIES:
As a member of the senior parish staff, each Director is expected to:
- Understand and promote the vision, mission, and ministries of the parish with the guidance and direction of the Pastor.
- Actively support philosophy and goals of the Parish and participate in Parish activities including attending services, assisting with ministries and other activities.
- Demonstrate highly developed organizational and leadership skills including ability to fluctuate effectively between multiple platforms of engagement including ministerial, pastoral, executive, liturgical/catechetical/evangelizing
- Collaborate closely with the Pastor and with other members of the parish staff in the overall pastoral ministry of the parish
- Contribute to the development of an evangelizing community by animating parishioners to the Good News within the home, workplace and neighborhood.
- Exercise multicultural competencies to communicates and maintain relationships in a multilingual context with parishioners, parish staff, the diocese
- Maintain effective working relationships with parish/school staff and all other ministries to coordinate activities, as appropriate.
Researches and keeps abreast of local, national, and global issues and trends to discern the “signs of the times” and address current realities in the Church and the world in light of the Gospel
- Work effectively with others through utilizing leadership skills of collaboration, visioning, planning, communication, decision making, delegation, and conflict management
- Collaborates with other staff to ensure Safe Environment certification for all engaged in parish ministry.
- Advocates for evangelization as a primary consideration in all aspects
••• OUTREACH •••
Description:
- Integrate Catholic social justice teachings within ministry by incorporating opportunities for justice and service to the Church and broader community and provide theological reflection on those opportunities
- Engaging the whole community, with a particular focus on youth and young adults, in developing a comprehensive sense of the social mission of the Church congruent with Catholic social teaching.
- With the support and oversight of the Pastor work across a variety of related issue-areas, e.g. addressing poverty, racism, immigration, foster care and people living with critical illnesses or disabilities.
- This position employs the latest digital tools and community organizing best practices to draw new and current parishioners into further in-person encounters with the social mission of the Church.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities:
- Investigate and discern outreach needs particular to Our Lady of Lourdes and support the establishment and coordination of issue-based action teams
- Know and integrate into ministerial practice a theology of the moral life, including Catholic social teaching for the transformation of Church and society
- Building and maintaining relationships with local, national and international organizations that provide community with opportunities for service and immersions that contribute to the common good of these overlapping communities;
- Collaborates with others to create opportunities for liturgical catechesis on the link between liturgy and social justice.
- Coordinate parish social outreach efforts, offering support to existing ministries (St. Vincent de Paul, OASIS), reinvigorating traditional ministries (Respect Life Committee, Restorative Justice), and establishing new relationships (Catholic Relief Services, Catholic Charities)
- Expand opportunities for education, prayer, relationship-building, and advocacy.
- Collaborate with school and faith formation staff and volunteers to organize social mission-based faith formation and educational opportunities
- Participates in staff meetings, activities, and other duties as assigned
••• FAITH FORMATION •••
Description:
- Oversee a pastoral, Christ-centered ministry that fosters the personal and spiritual growth of members of the community at all stages of life and faith development
- Direct the parish catechetical program through design, implementation, and evaluation of parish catechetical processes.
- Implement the catechumenal model as inspiration for catechesis, taking into consideration life-experience and developmentally appropriate ways of engagement.
- Facilitating and supporting the development of community among youth, their families, and within the Church and society, including the development of small faith communities with youth from different cultures, spiritualities, or pastoral models.
- Inviting youth to – and facilitating opportunities for youth to grow in – intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, empowering them to live and witness as disciples in today’s world.
- Coordinating, organizing and leading faith formation opportunities for children and Confirmation meetings for teens.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities:
- Directs and oversees various faith formation programs that support a lifelong deepening of the Catholic faith for all parishioners consistent with the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), National Directory for Catechesis (NDC), diocesan guidelines, and parish needs.
- Collaborate with parish and school staff to develop, plan, organize, and oversee all faith formation programs for children and adults of the Parish, including Religious Education for children, Sacramental Preparation, RCIA for children and adults, Adult Confirmation, and Children’s Liturgy of the Word.
- Develop, plan, and implement a schedule for Confirmation and youth ministry programming and collaborating with parish staff and volunteers to prepare teens for Sacraments, as necessary
- Building relationships with our parish school and surrounding public/private schools to coordinate ministries for middle and high school youth
- Applies knowledge from ongoing formation on the RCIA/RICA/OCIA process and thorough understanding of the text
- Manages and supervises formation teams in English and Spanish and works with them on the development of a yearly schedule for all faith formation programs
- Facilitate youth ministry site-wide, including, but not limited to, families registered in faith formation and sacrament preparation programs, the parish school, and parish families at large
- Exercises diligence in assuring compliance with Archdiocesan/Parish Safeguard the Children policies.
- Participates in staff meetings, activities, and other duties as assigned
Requirements
- At least 5 years experience in parish leadership
- Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree preferred
- Certificated in applicable area(s): e.g. basic/master catechist, liturgy
- Fluency and/or literacy in Spanish or Tagalog preferred, but not required
- Strong leadership, written and oral communication, and interpersonal skills.
- Thrives in a highly relational environment and works well with a team.
- Decisive, responsive, and adaptable to change in an often-fast paced environment.
- Ability to work under pressure; must initiate, be creative, and anticipate solutions to problems needs good judgment in emergency situations and when working with varied personalities and cultures; must be able to work under frequent interruptions.
- Enjoys challenges and is highly adaptive to new ideas.
- Brings new ideas to ministry and adds value to existing programs.
- Ability to plan, short and long term, while organizing workload.
- Proactive and willing to seek out solutions.
- Knowledge of: software and communications programs, social media and related technology
- Follows Parish Handbook and Archdiocesan and Church policies
Wage Range
The rate of pay offered to the selected candidate is based on internal pay policy and budget. New hires are commonly paid at the minimum of the wage range or within the lower part of the range. We consider a number of factors when making compensation decisions including, but not limited to, skill sets, experience, training and other department needs.