How to be a good shepherd: nine traits of effective pastoral leaders.

Mary Ellen had never before been inside a rectory. A lifelong Catholic, she was surprised that it had taken a fair amount of courage to call for an appointment with her pastor. Now, driving home from her meeting in the rectory, she felt a new sense of calm and peace. Her mother, she had told her pastor, was in need of nursing home care, her marriage was strained as never before, and her teenage daughter hadn't spoken to her for the past week. She had put all this before the man that until now she knew only from a distance--from her usual pew at Sunday Mass.

He had offered no easy solutions to her desperate situation, no platitudes to soothe her spiritual dryness, but he had really listened to her. And this seemed to make all the difference. He had listened--and he had tried to understand. She now had the names of two nursing homes that other parishioners had found to offer excellent care to their parents and grandparents. And talking to her pastor about her family problems gave her a fresh sense of how she might begin to really listen to her husband and daughter. She silently thanked God for the courage it took to make the appointment with her pastor and for the good and wise man with whom she had spent the past hour.

Mary Ellen had just experienced an encounter with an effective pastoral minister. Her meeting with her parish priest had, to her surprise, touched her soul in ways she couldn't fully explain, even to herself.

What is it that makes one visit to a rectory for pastoral counseling so transforming and another so disappointing? Why do some priests and lay pastoral ministers inspire hope and trust while others, in spite of saying the right things, fail to lift the spirits of their parishioners?

Sooner or later, most Catholics find themselves making a call to the rectory to schedule a Baptism, to register a child for the parish school, to arrange for a marriage or a funeral. What happens when the call is made is often a critical moment in the religious history of that parishioner.

Nonpracticing Catholics regularly explain their alienation from the church in terms of encounters with pastors and lay ministers that, from their point of view, proved to be disappointing, even disastrous. Priests and lay ministers, no matter how well-intentioned or well-educated, from time to time make mistakes, and sometimes mistakes have serious consequences in the faith lives of others.

Parish ministers also deserve some slack, some appreciation. Shepherding a parish congregation as pastor or lay minister is not for the faint of heart. In addition to the regular demands facing priests and pastoral ministers--funerals, weddings, counseling parishioners, and care of the sick and elderly--they must contend with a Catholic world quite different from the halcyon days following World War II.

Recent surveys show that most parishioners don't attend Eucharist regularly, and those who take an active role in the life of their parish community continue to dwindle. Add in the tensions inherent to today's church, the dramatic decline in the number of ordained priests, as well as the various recent scandals of clergy misconduct, and an already challenging ministry becomes all the more difficult.

At the same time, vibrant parishes can be found from coast to coast where prayerful worship, a strong sense of community, and social outreach both nourish the spiritual lives of the faithful and proclaim the gospel to their communities and beyond. To a great extent, the vitality of these parishes is due to the pastors and lay ministers who provide--often without much recognition or affirmation--vision, leadership, and pastoral care.

We have a good deal to learn from the men and women who effectively shepherd our congregations. In my experience, one commonly finds the following nine traits in these remarkable pastoral leaders who quietly yet bravely exercise their servant-leadership in difficult times.

1. Integrity

Effective pastors and lay leaders are perceived as real people, as whole and integrated adults. Parishioners instinctively know they can be trusted. They possess the moral courage necessary to preach, lead, and reconcile. Their spiritual journey has taught them how to be their own person and at the same time a man or woman of the church. While they remain faithful to the gospel and to the teachings of the church, they honestly face pastoral situations that remain conflicted and thorny.

Parishioners are moved when they see their pastoral ministers drawing insight and inspiration from their stories of faith and struggles with life.

2. Identity

Effective pastors and lay leaders remember that they are, before all else, disciples of Jesus Christ. Their primary identity remains grounded in their Baptism. While they may be priest, deacon, vowed religious, or lay minister, they are Christians first. And because they are disciples, like other members of the faithful, they need to hear God's Word, to be ministered to, and to be supported by community and friends. Grounded in their baptismal identity, they minister without hint of clericalism or spiritual superiority.

3. Intimacy

No strangers to the human condition, pastoral leaders model honest, mature friendships with men and women of their own age. And in some of their friends, they have discovered soul mates--those few individuals with whom they can be appropriately intimate. (I use intimacy here in the sense of deep spiritual friendship, not as a euphemism for sexual relations.) Without chaste, intimate friendship, the demands of pastoral leadership can be crushing.

Maintaining healthy, meaningful friendships, however, can be particularly challenging for those in parish leadership roles. Does a pastor, for example, diminish his ability to minister to a family in crisis when he is a close friend to the parents? I believe he does--especially if the crisis is about the marital relationship of his friends.

In spite of the challenges involved, honest, chaste intimacy with a few trusted friends remains essential for today's parish leaders. Emotional maturity and the support of close friendships with men and women of comparable age minimize the risk of boundary violations.

4. Magnanimity 

It is easy to imagine the harm done by pastoral ministers who are stingy with their time, energy, and money. They simply can't reflect the magnanimity of Jesus of Nazareth or the hospitality demanded by the gospel. Effective pastoral ministers, on the other hand, have open hearts and open minds.

True pastoral magnanimity emerges naturally in individuals committed to prayer and contemplation. Without a true life in the spirit, gestures of magnanimity ring false.

5. Affection for parishioners

The late Swiss theologian Hans Urs yon Balthasar once wrote, "Grace is God's affection for us." Parishioners must experience not only the ministrations of their pastoral ministers, they must come to experience their affection. They need to know that the parish leadership operates out of a genuine concern and care for their well-being.

Tired, stretched-out pastors often don't have the psychic energy necessary to attend with care and patience to the spiritual and personal needs of their congregations. When this is the case, parishioners easily come to believe that their pastor and his associates are simply putting in their time.

Parishioners seem to know when the parish team regularly prays for them. And they seem to sense when they don't. Regular prayer for the people they serve is the foundation of the pastoral leader's concern.

6. An intellectual life

Effective pastors and lay leaders, in spite of the demands placed, on them, take their intellectual lives seriously. They find the time for serious reading. Their spiritual and emotional health convinces them that they must have a "life."

Without serious reading, without occasional visits to the theater, the orchestra, and the museum, without good novels and nonfiction, their imaginations begin to wither and their capacity for inspired preaching and joyful service diminishes. Moreover, their ministry is often lifeless and without creativity. And this can be deadly for a parish. As the late historian of religions Mircea Eliade once observed, "Spirit is strange; it has an obligation to create."

People who attend to the needs of the mind and heart seldom find prayer a demanding or tedious experience. They bring a freshness and energy to their work as pastors and lay ministers. And they are far less likely to burn out.

7. Willing rather than willful

Healthy pastors have learned how to approach their ministry willingly rather than willfully. They do their best, but they force nothing. It can be profoundly liberating to know that doing their relative best is always good enough.

Psychologists know that willful people demand mastery and control over their personal lives as well as their environment. Willing people, on the other hand, characteristically are noted for their capacity to trust and their ability to surrender to the hidden but abiding presence of God.

8. A sense of mission

Responding to the nonstop pastoral needs of their congregations reduces the ministry of many leaders to pastoral maintenance. The focus becomes the next funeral, the next wedding, the next visit to the hospital, the meetings and events crowding his or her calendar.

Under these circumstances, the pastor or lay minister can easily lose sight of the mission inherent to the gospel--to bring the light of God's Word to a world thirsting for the peace and fulfillment only the Spirit can give. "Give me a break," we hear them cry. "You want me to evangelize a confused and troubled society? I can barely make it through the week!"

Paradoxically, pastors and lay leaders who are able to keep in mind the bigger picture, the mission inherent to the gospel, find themselves blessed with perspective. This gently reminds them of the significance of their work and, not surprisingly, lightens their load.

9. A vital spiritual life

Undergirding and giving form to each of the above characteristics is an authentic, healthy, and mature spiritual life. It is grounded in the experience of being grasped by a divine presence, a holy mystery.

Belief in the gospel, in revelation, in the teachings of the church, by themselves, are not infallible signs of faith. Effective parish leaders, at least from time to time, experience the hidden power of grace erupting in their own lives and the lives of their parishioners. Marked by these moments of grace, their parishioners come to suspect that their pastors know something about holiness.

Both as human beings and as pastoral professionals, priests and lay ministers need support and encouragement. Without recognition, appreciation, and especially affirmation, sustained ministry in today's parishes leads to psychological and spiritual exhaustion--what is commonly termed burnout.

Most pastors and pastoral ministers, I believe, are surprised to find themselves spiritual leaders in today's church. Bishop Kenneth Untener of Saginaw, Michigan was once asked why he became a priest. He responded, "It wasn't my idea!"

Pastoral leaders today have a very challenging and demanding vocation. They are not perfect. They know that. But most are committed to being as effective as possible. They deserve our support and affirmation.

RELATED ARTICLE: The seven skills of highly effective pastors

Effective pastors and lay ministers also display certain skills. Ideally, they will have developed and sharpened these skills as part of their ministry training and formation. But many acquire them on the job. Continuing-education programs for clergy and lay ministers teach these skills, but often the priests and lay ministers most in need of them choose not to participate.

1. AN ABILITY TO CONNECT

As people of integrity and emotional maturity, effective pastoral ministers ring true. Parishioners sense they are in the presence of someone who really is interested in them, someone who respects them and takes them seriously. Ministers who see themselves as a notch above their parishioners seldom connect with ease. Their very style of relating comes across as patronizing.

2. A CAPACITY FOR SOLITUDE

Effective pastoral leaders are not only faithful to regular times of prayer, they have learned to live prayerful lives. As a result, they are able to move from task to task with a noticeable peace of soul. Parishioners recognize this abiding spiritual calm and sense that this particular pastoral minister not only knows about God but knows God. This is the person who is approached for spiritual counseling and direction.

An attitude of prayerfulness almost always is the fruit of solitude. In spite of the demands placed on their lives by the very nature of parish ministry, the effective pastoral leader has jealously guarded his or her time for quietly listening to the voice of God that can only be heard by the soul that has been stilled.

3. A SENSE OF BOUNDARIES

Understanding that he or she is both pastoral caregiver and at the same time a member of a particular faith community, the parish leader interacts with parishioners and others as a fellow disciple of Jesus Christ--as a brother or sister--and also with appropriate awareness of his or her leadership role in the community.

Effective parish leaders know who they are, understand their own human needs for friendship, intimacy, and community. And they understand the danger inherent in trying to meet these needs in their interactions with parishioners. Without question, this is one of the most difficult skills the parish leader needs to master. It can be especially challenging for those who are celibate or unmarried. More often than not, if these ministers do not have a vital human life distinct from their ministerial roles, they stand in serious jeopardy of violating boundaries.

4. LEADERSHIP

One of the more important signs that an individual possesses the charism of pastoral ministry is an aptitude for leadership. Until recently, many seminaries and lay ministry training programs did not rank leadership potential as a critical factor in their admissions. Today we know leadership is at the heart of parish ministry.

Often the pastor's leadership style will be more quiet than dramatic, more subtle than direct. As gifted leaders, the pastor and his ministry colleagues are able to call upon their parishioners to exercise their gifts and to provide the training and support appropriate for these volunteer ministries.

5. AN ABILITY TO COLLABORATE

The "lone ranger" style of parish leadership has mostly slipped away. Priests now regularly work closely with deacons, pastoral associates, directors of religious education and liturgy, and school principals. Together they form a pastoral team that can be supportive and freeing as well as demanding and frustrating.

Good pasturing in today's church demands that parish leaders are healthy and humble enough to recognize and celebrate the ministerial gifts of their colleagues. Pastors who feel their priestly identity threatened by the church's theology of ministry and the expanded pool of ministers may easily resent the successes of their colleagues and the time and energy required for healthy and creative team functioning.

6. DOCTORS OF SOULS

Effective ministers know how to listen. They a re self-possessed enough to forget about themselves and to attend as fully as possible to the parishioner sitting in their office. All good pastors and lay leaders have a certain "healing presence." Parishioners sense that just to be in their presence is a blessing; they feel their souls have been expanded.

Thomas Merton remarked that it is difficult even for saints to live together in harmony without breaking each other's "spiritual bones" through misunderstandings and unkind remarks. Pastoral ministers are meant, by the quality of their prayerful presence and pastoral training, to set these broken bones. These spiritual guides and healers are indeed doctors of souls.

7. BEARERS OF THE WORD

Good preaching flows out of a mature spiritual life, but authentic preaching always leads both the preacher and congregation to experience a strong, almost urgent, need for prayer. Preaching that doesn't lead to prayer or the desire to be still in the presence of God is somehow defective. --Father Donald B. Cozzens