How is God calling you to serve?

• 7% of American Catholics are highly engaged.

• The Catholic Church is a sleeping giant. We literally have the power to change the world.

─Matthew Kelly, What Will The Catholic Church In America Be Like 20 Years From Now? ( Dynamic Catholic .com)

I am A Recovering Volunteer!

Saint Catherine of Siena

To Build The Body of Christ

Based on your

unique strengths!

There is only ONE CALL!

Lay Formation We are believers, followers,

disciples of Christ

Be an active part of the Church’s mission

as an advocate, a messenger,

apostles for Christ

Based on the Catherine of Siena Institute

Do they know?

Based on the Catherine of Siena Institute

All baptized Christians have an office in the Church, a personal role

The office is bestowed by God

The office is always directed toward the

service of others

The office enables us to stand in Jesus’ place

What you DO

with your faith

How you FEEL

about your faith

What you KNOW about

your faith

A Life and Faith Connection

ONLY THE HOLY!

Charism

Not inherited traits

Powered by the Holy Spirit

Dependent on grace

May only be used for God’s purpose - to serve others

Based on the Catherine of Siena Institute

Think Differently From ME To WE

Christ has redeemed me Christ has redeemed the world

I am called to be a disciple I am called to be an apostle

Am I worthy of Christ? Can I bring Christ to others?

My own perfection The needs of others

My personal salvation The salvation of the world

The ordained are the ministers Each parish member is

and the laity are recipients called to help the ordained bring God’s message to the world

Based on the Catherine of Siena Institute

TALENT The Power of the Right Fit

Know your “right fit”

Help others know theirs!

Your five strongest talents form a category called

Signature Themes

Why do we focus on our top five?

13,046,406 people around the world

have taken StrengthsFinder

• There are 278,256 possible unique combinations of Signature Themes

• There are 33.39 million different permutations with unique order can exist

How can I answer the call to build the Body

of Christ?

First Task Second Task

_________________ _________________

_________________ _________________

_________________ _________________

Is a naturally occurring pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied

– A spontaneous, sometimes subconscious reaction

– What you do well without even thinking about it

– Transferable from one situation to another

Simply what you know

– Can be Factual or Experiential

– Can be an understanding of information

– How do we become knowledgeable?

The capacity to perform the fundamental steps of an activity in order.

• Think of skills as tasks

• Abilities learned from instructions, in a sequence that we can repeat.

Talent + Investment of Knowledge and Skills =

STRENGTH

From “ME” to “WE”…

From Me to WE

“And he gave some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the Body of Christ.”

Ephesians 4:11-12

We Are One Body

…But as it is, God placed the parts, each one of them, in the body as he intended. If they were all one part, where would the body be?

“As stated in 1 Corinthians 12….”

…But as it is, there are many parts, yet one body….. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy. Now you are Christ’s body, and individually parts of it.”

1 Corinthians 12:12-27

• Where does your “puzzle piece” best fit into God’s plan?

• How do your talents match or compliment the needs of certain roles, tasks, groups or ministries?

• How can you maximize the effect your talent will have in certain circumstances and situations?

Talent Domains

Strengths Based Teams

Team Domain Table

6x more likely to be engaged on the job

12.5x more productive as teams

3x as likely to have an excellent quality of life

Teams with Complimentary Strengths

Now that you know,

what will you do?

Framing Discernment

1. Understand your right fit and practice telling others

2. Explore the best role for utilizing your talents

3. Serve with intention, put yourself in ministries that will develop God’s plan for your life not your own

4. Respond only to God’s Call, not a call for warm bodies

5. Less can be more!

Find your strengths, Fuel your firepower!

Three Talent Development Sessions

1. THAT’S IMPRESSIVE, THAT’S A STRENGTH 2. FIND A GAP AND FILL IT 3. START WITH TALENT, FINISH WITH STRENGTH

A LIFE LONG JOURNEY Persistent exploration of your talents

Resist feelings of failure, temptation to give up

Affirm your progress- yearning, rapid learning, satisfaction, a certain knack

Yes to God, yes to nudges by Holy Spirit

Energy reserves are important to maintaining your progress

Rigorous pursuit of your personal right fit, in everything you do

Talent Bio Veronica Maximizer, Positivity, Activator, Arranger, Individualization

My Best Roles:

Maximizer: Helping other succeed – Coach, mentor,

teaching roles, welcoming new members.

Positivity & Activator: Beginning new programs, a new

ministry or class within the parish.

Arranger: Creating effective teams, helping logistical and

operations, task force.

Individualization: Serving on a nominating committee,

writing parish human interest articles, counseling, supervising,

teaching,

Talent Bio I bring a “quality orientation” into things. My strength is taking things that are working well and fine tuning them into pockets of excellence. Studying and replicating success so it creates sustained and long lasting levels of excellence is rewarding to me. I bring enthusiasm and joy into projects. My strength is celebrating achievements, motivating people and getting them engaged to complete the task. I turn thoughts and ideas into action. My strength is to create momentum and motion in others. I organize people / resources and arrange them for maximum productivity. Flexibility is a hidden strength which allows me find the most efficient way to get things done. I get excited when learning about people. Seeing their true diversity and learning how they are uniquely made in God’s image is exciting to me. I serve best by helping people find the right role for their skills, talents and strength and connect them into the parish.

Talent Bio My potential Challenges:

•Continual problem solving will drain my enthusiasm and energy. I rely on chief trouble shooters and problem solvers to crystallize ideas within the group so we can move forward and take ideas into action. •People may think I am complacent as I as I focus on things that work instead of things that are broken. I need explain the strategy to get buy in from those that prefer focusing on the fixing the weakness first. •Others may think I am naïve, I need to express to others that I have recognized the challenges and the obstacles and have a reason for my optimism. •People can see me as impatient, I need to share the reason for the desired action and express the sense of urgency to get buy in. •People may see my flexibility as changing plans. I need to reassure them that I am seeking a way to be more efficient in reaching the same mission and goal •I need to explain and remind others why a 1 size fits all approach to interacting with others is not effective. Recognizing individuality and unique beauty in a soul, group or community is appropriate and at times necessary.

• After the initial presentation, I was starved to learn more.

• This workshop helped me to see what I really need to focus on and helped to know what to do with my God-given talent.

• This workshop helped give me a path and clarity.

• Easily applicable to every day life. Exercises are good, and sharing is excellent.

• It was enlightening, and I am looking forward to the next workshop.

• I like how the experience became individualized.

• We need to get more men to attend this fantastic course!

– Endorsement from the clergy

–Videos, blogs, social media, parish website

– Scheduled Workshops

– Speakers at ministry meetings

“The Clergy Channel”

• Gratefully sharing our God given talents and

strengths; causing others to draw closer to Christ.

• Acting as servant and shepherd

Knowing Our Faith

Living Our Faith

Spreading Our Faith

Evolving Our Parish

Based on over 30 years of success in the business world

Growth within the parish will be accomplished by getting to know and understand ourselves

and others, better than we already do through the Clifton Strengths Finder® assessment

and group discussions and coaching.

– Test re-test reliability

– Demonstrates consistent patterns of behavior

– Identifies enduring human qualities

– Meta analysis used to control measure and

sampling errors to correct discrepancies

Stewardship Prayer Lord, you have called us to be stewards and to form stewards. We ask

you to bless us and all that we do here in the St. Brigid community and beyond. Let us be a blessing to those we serve. Send your Spirit into our lives that we might better recognize and share the gifts you have lavished upon us and help us to lead others to discover and share their gifts. May we continue to look for ways to strengthen our ties with those who have already embraced stewardship and to discover ways to reach out to those for whom stewardship is not yet part of their lives. And when, like the Apostles, we have labored through the night and caught nothing, help us to heed your call to set out into the deep and uncharted waters that our nets might be filled. In all that we do, help us to remember that as your disciples we are called to do your will.

Amen.