I love my own free will, and hate everyone else’s. If only my wife, kids, and everyone else would do what I want, then the world would be perfect, wouldn’t it? We all think like this sometimes. As a father of five children, I sometimes base my happiness on whether others do what I want them to do, when I want them to do it, and how I want them to do it.

As I continue to age, I find myself having to change my parenting decisions all the time, especially now that most of my kids are young adults. What once worked no longer does. I can’t just command my children to do what I want them to do. No longer can I just step in and make decisions for a young adult who is out of college and working. Neither should I solve all the problems that my college kids have. Even with the teenagers (all who are 16 or above) things have changed dramatically. 

Even when they were younger, I had to allow them room to make their own decisions and face the consequences. Sometimes the best way to learn is by failing and trying again. The lessons we all learn in life sometimes come in situations where things aren’t clear, where we face uncertainties, and when we must make difficult decisions ourselves, yet with the support, guidance, and help of others when needed. 

In trying to grow as a parent and leader myself, one thing I have learned while parenting young adults is that it is better to try and exert influence rather than control.

The same can be said about leadership in the Catholic Church. Influence rather than control should be our goal. Why? Simply put - we are incapable of controlling others. It doesn’t work and is counter-productive.

CONTROL vs INFLUENCE
You have probably met a pastor, parish administrator, DRE, etc. that tried to exercise complete control over a parish. They have to make all the decisions, they don’t want to allow others to take the reins over any part of the parish, and they manage others with a “my way or the highway” mentality.

Has any leader ever truly helped a parish with this style of leadership? If so, the gains were marginal at best. This is for many reasons, but here are some:

In a parish (or diocese) where the person in charge is exerting CONTROL, you get:

• The leader’s ideas.
• People who follow based on fear (I don’t want to lose the job) or necessity (need the money).
• A team that feels underappreciated and underutilized.
• An organization limited by the knowledge, skill, and ability of the leader.
• High burnout and low morale.
• Little creativity and slow (if any) growth.
• People who are poorly managed and feel the burden of being supervised.
• A leader who can’t see beyond the short-term.
• A culture where failure is unacceptable. Fear is a primary motivator.
• A decision-maker who is self-focused and must get their way. The bottle-neck of decision making causes everything to drag.

In a parish (or diocese) where the person in charge is exerting INFLUENCE, you get:

• The team’s ideas.
• People who follow because they believe in the mission. They are willing to sacrifice to achieve the goals set out.
• A team that feels united and appreciated. They are empowered to use their gifts.
• An organization limited by the team’s combined knowledge, skills, and abilities, which far surpasses any one person.
• High morale and low burnout.
• Creative thinking and growth.
• People who feel supported and encouraged by supervisors.
• Leadership with a long-range vision. Short-term failure for long-term success is acceptable.
• Decisions are based on principles that can be applied by various people in various situations.
• The culture is other-focused. It desires the good of the other. Delegates many decisions to others.

PASTORAL PRACTICE
So what does influence look like in a healthy parish? Well, it starts with the truth and ends in trust. Truth is the foundation of all good pastoral ministry and leadership. Truth is never to be sacrificed at the altars of unity, listening, influence, pastoral practice, etc. We can't truly have any of these if we leave truth behind. Truth guides us in how we act, live, make decisions, & treat others.
Still, the truth is not a weapon to hammer others with. We have to learn how to wield it in a way which will be accepted by others. 

Building on the truth, we need to work on earning the trust of others, listening to their experiences, being patient and kind with them, but when we discern that it is appropriate to do so, we also need to love them enough to tell them what is true, good, & beautiful, starting with the Good News that Jesus has come to save us from our sins.

This isn’t aiming for control, but influence.
Influence says, “consider this” and “this is what changed my life and I think it might help you too”. It also believes in the God-given ability of others do great things.

Control says, “you must do this or else” and “I can’t love you until you do this”. It doubts the God-given ability of others.

Here lies the Catch-22. To provide good pastoral care, you need to know your people and spend time with them. This means that a pastor by himself (or with a team helping him with pastoral care) can’t serve everyone in the parish in the way they need to be served, at least not with the current model most parishes operate with today. More on this below.

IN PRACTICE
If there is anyone who could command others to do what he wanted, it was Jesus. God made man. He had the authority, right, and power to command others. Yet, more often than merely commanding others to do what he said, he chose to influence them. He wanted them to follow him freely and out of love. Not mere obedience due to obligation.

We Catholics know obligation, but we should also know that mere obligations no longer suffice. Most Catholics don’t care that they are obligated and commanded to attend Sunday Mass every week. Most Catholics don’t care about the moral laws that are imposed on them. 

We can no merely longer command. We must lead with integrity and influence.

Influence is actual power in practice. It means that a leader has responsive followers who have been influenced and thus accepted leadership. A leader with no influence has no actual power to do anything.

In many ways, this is the state of the Catholic Church. Many don’t accept the influence of our leaders. Leaders must thus win back influence. Power, influence, and leadership can change our Church. The questions of what strategies and tactics are best to use are therefore paramount.

How you treat people matters. Trying to exert control by fear, punishment, guilt, or negative consequences rarely has the desired outcome.

People respond when they have ownership, buy-in, clarity in mission, encouragement, they feel like they are cared for, they matter, their opinions are listened to, etc. This model of pastoral care does not mean that every decision needs to be democratic or that we have to slow down the growth to poll everyone about everything. Rather, it means people are truly cared for by their pastor(s).

Psalm 23 tells us a lot about pastoral care. A good shepherd cares for the flock. He nourishes, provides shelter and food, protects, guides, and comforts the flock. 

The fact is that most parishes are simply too large for the priest(s) to be able to adequately serve the flock in the manner they need and want to. Thus, we need a shift from priest-centric pastoral care to lay-centric pastoral care. We see this in the early church. The most important duties of the leaders (priests and bishops) became harder to accomplish as the church grew post-Pentecost. Thus, in Acts 6 we see the establishment of the diaconate to share some of the administrative responsibilities and free the Apostles to preach the Gospel and shepherd the flock. Then the burden was shared by the laity as well. The women who helped fulfill the needs of the community. The poor. The rich. The elderly. The young. Everyone had a role in bringing the Gospel to others, but a role that was dependent on their gifts. Paul tells us:

“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Cor 12.4-7)

Of course, this included laity.

LAITY ASSISTING IN PASTORAL CARE? YES!
Some Catholics get worried when the role of the laity goes beyond pray, pay, and obey. It need not worry us though. We also need not blur the lines between the clergy and laity. Only our priests can give us the Sacraments. Only our priests can pastor our parishes. Only our clergy can preach homilies during Mass. Etc. There are many things laity can’t do. Therefore, to have a lay-centric pastoral care model we need to define what that might look like. Here are a few markers for such a parish:

1. Aim at conversion through evangelization outside of those going to Mass. So much of the modern concept of “discipleship” and “ministry” is about passively receiving information. But, our goal should be transformation that comes from conversion of heart and action, not just the reception of information. Of course, we can’t love what we don’t know. But, the purpose of knowledge is to help us love more, not just be information that is good to know. So, our goal in every part of what we do in pastoral ministry should be making transformed lives. We need to aim at being converted more and more closely into the saints God calls us to be. This can’t happen until we open our own hearts, through prayer, and allow the Holy Spirit to operate through us. It also can’t happen unless we bring the Gospel to those who will never come to our parishes. Only with a laity made up of missionary disciples can we accomplish this.
2. Purposeful and intimate friendships. Purposeful in the sense that the relationships have a plan and mission - to make and grow missionary disciples, who do the same with others. This is both caught and taught. Intimate in the sense of putting in the time and effort to build trust and to do so within conversations that matter. Without intimacy, spiritual friendships cannot grow. This is what our accompaniment of other parishioners ought to look like. We walk together to deeper relationships with each other and Jesus. It is inefficient and our clergy simply can’t invest in everyone. We need laity to take on this role as well.
3. A vision for growth. Every Catholic should know what the purpose of their friendship with another is. They should also be able to communicate what happens in the next “generation” of disciples. In other words, each friendship, while an end unto itself, is not the end of our mission. Those we are in relationships with (esp. Those we mentor) should be able to equip others  to multiply disciples themselves.
   
   I know of many small groups that have been going on for years. The members grow in knowledge of Scripture, Church teachings, etc - but their personal prayer, action, and mission are not changed over the course of those years. This is primarily due to the fact that the group is fulfilling what it was started for - education on different subjects. It isn’t started to be a process that transforms members’ lives and then equips them to be transformative agents in the lives of others. To change lives, we have to have our own lives changed first.

OUTCOMES:

Some of the outcomes of having intentional lay-centric pastoral care are:

• It takes much of the burden off of our pastors. I know that during a spiritual crisis the men that I walk with are more likely to make their first call to me (or another lay friend they are walking with) than to a priest. This can’t be said for someone who has no other meaningful spiritual relationships.
• It makes pastoral care scalable. We can’t just reproduce a ton of new priests to care for all the Catholics in our world. We can care for one another. Thus, this model is scalable, while a priest-centric one is not.
• It fills in the gaps where Catholics are weak. Our parishes aren’t helping people find meaningful community or relationships. Furthermore, it gives a place where active conversations can happen, rather than just passive reception of information. For these two reasons alone, the model can benefit many who are on the cusp of disaffiliation.
• Slows the decline and turns it into growth. Without large-scale changes in HOW we operate, we won’t make a dent into the decline, at least while you and I still live. But, with this kind of model in place, we can not only slow the decline, but turn it around. We can grow. Only disciples of Jesus can make other disciples of Jesus. This is our mission. This is our calling.

This kind of pastoral care is dependent on our clergy being leaders who influence their flocks in ways that have them take up their rightful place in caring for others. A good shepherd cares for the sheep. Good sheep make more sheep. None of this will be done by controlling others.