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In April 2024, fourteen people completed the lay pastoral caregiver training program. This training consisted of fourteen modules over two weekends and included sessions on accompaniment, listening, spirituality and prayer, pastoral care, pastoral identity, pastoral visits, grief, confidentiality, family systems, and care for the caregivers. This was a collaborative effort between Bridge Builders for a Thriving Mission, Office of Lay Leadership, and Parish Nursing in the Diocese of Saint Cloud. This training prepares the laity for compassionate listening in ministry, pastoral visits to the homebound and nursing homes, bereavement ministry, engaged and marriage ministry, and ministry to those who are marginalized by homelessness, imprisoned, or sheltered for safety.


To those who completed the program in April: Well done and congratulations!

  • Melanie Halter, Bethlehem Lutheran

  • Kari Salzer, Benedictine Communities

  • Alejandra Renteri, Church of the Risen Savior

  • Carmen Marin, Church of the Risen Savior

  • Bev Paul, Come to the Water ACC

  • Patty Marriott, Come to the Water ACC

  • Marianne Shrode, Come to the Water ACC

  • Janelle VanErp, Disciples of the Mission ACC

  • Greg and Vicki Spofford, Little Falls Ecumenical Faith Community

  • Tina Standfuss, Holy Saints ACC

  • Brenda Taylor, Isanti ACC

  • Tamara Welle, One in Faith ACC

  • Nancy Nordick, Red River Valley ACC





Are you interested in becoming a lay pastoral caregiver?

Our next training for a new group will be October 18–19 and December 13–14, 2024, at the Abbey Guesthouse in Collegeville, Minnesota. The cost for this training is provided by the Bridge Builders for a Thriving Mission Initiative. There is no cost to the participants. To register, click here. For more information, contact Sam Rahberg at srahberg001@csbsju.edu.



Here at Bridge Builders for a Thriving Mission, we firmly believe that discernment is a lifelong practice, not a one-and-done event. We help ministers hone their discernment skills, explore their vocations, and seek out resources that enhance their ministries. Many of the people we work with have been in ministry for years. We also partner with the Saint John’s School of Theology and Seminary to foster this discerning spirit in students, helping them grow in ministerial servant leadership.

 

Conversatio: Creating a Culture of Encounter is a three-year program during which students earn a Master of Divinity degree, live in intentional community, and participate in the Benedictine way of life. They serve in Area Catholic Communities in youth ministry, faith formation, or liturgical ministry. The parish component offers an opportunity to work with and be mentored by lay ecclesial ministers and gain pastoral experience in Area Catholic Communities. Conversatio’s main goal is to prepare students to foster ongoing Christian conversion and encounter in themselves and in local and rural congregations where they serve. Effective pastoral leaders commit to the ongoing work of renewing Christ’s body and foster relationships with God and neighbor. The Benedictine vow of conversatio morum (long-term commitment to conversion and growth by the Spirit) and Pope Francis’s notion of a culture of encounter (relationships) inform the mission and ministry of Conversatio.

 

As students are discerning their vocation to lay ecclesial ministry, our parish partners play an essential role in providing guidance, mentorship, and resources. The student’s coursework informs and forms them for parish leadership and ministry. Theological foundations, the Church’s tradition and history, vocational call to ministry, and various methods and models of catechesis and evangelization learned in the classroom provide students with a strong foundation to serve God and God’s people in ministry. Their work in the parish, in turn, breathes life into the body of knowledge they are learning in the classroom. They can directly apply and share the wisdom gained in “real life” to make a meaningful impact. 

 

Our graduate assistants provide support in different areas of ministry, all while learning about parish life and community in rural Minnesota. When students are placed in a parish, they are asked to observe, listen, and participate in parish life for the first month to understand the community, the history, and the people. One student is working in middle school youth ministry, building relationships and helping the parish keep an already robust ministry vibrant. Another student is teaching confirmation classes and helping with First Communion preparation for both the Spanish- and English-speaking communities. Another is assisting leaders in the community to teach English to new immigrants. One of the graduate students has said, “I am learning not only the tasks of ministry (creating forms, turning on lights, moving furniture, keeping a schedule, communicating details) but also how to build relationships, be present for people, and listen.”

 

Students are experiencing the day-to-day administrative work involved in ministry as well as the person-centered and relationship-building aspects of ministry. They work ten hours a week from September to June. Conversatio is always looking for partners in area parishes to mentor and accompany graduate students in meaningful ministry. 

 

If your parish is interested in being part of this partnership, please contact Donelle Poling at dpoling001@csbsju.edu.

Is negative stress, compassion fatigue, or emotional burnout getting in the way of the ministry God has called you to? If so, there is great hope!

 

Jim Otremba is passionate about helping Catholic ministers be as healthy as they can be and desires to help those ministers who are suffering with compassion fatigue, negative stress, or burnout in Central Minnesota.

 

Bridge Builders for a Thriving Mission shares the same passion and is offering Jim’s group coaching program to twelve people in church leadership at no cost.

 

We have only two available openings for Jim’s four-week group coaching program! Do you, or does a minister you know, want to learn more about healthy ways to manage negative stress, burnout, and compassion fatigue that is based on Catholic theology and rooted in twenty-first-century brain biology?

 

If so, email Jim at jimotremba@gmail.com and sign up for his group coaching program today. Once all twelve openings are full, we will close registration.

 

Details

The group will meet online from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. CST on June 3, June 17, July 1, and July 15, 2024.


All classes will meet over Zoom every other Monday, thereby giving people time to work on their “homework.” Jim recommends about 20 minutes a day for homework to make an impact. Because of confidentiality the Zoom classes will not be recorded, but if you can’t make a class, Jim will email the handouts to you.


Schedule of Sessions

►First week: Brief introductions of each other; biology of stress and compassion fatigue; the importance of intentionality in our Catholic faith and stress management; new homework.

 

►Second week: Brief “Resurrection Reports” (areas where the Holy Spirit has been bringing new life through your homework); introducing multiple strategies to start to practice before, during, and after secondary traumatic stress (STS); practicing Catholic Clinical Meditation; and new homework, including one of the best activities to alter negative stress and compassion fatigue according to research.

 

►Third week: Brief “Resurrection Reports”; building critical resiliency skills that protect against negative stress and compassion fatigue; and new homework.

 

►Fourth week: Brief “Resurrection Reports”; building a support network; working on correcting negative perceptions to continue building resiliency skills; retaking the ProQOL and GA-7; final homework.

 

Watch the replay of the Jim’s live Zoom information session on Understanding Compassion Fatigue (April 2024), here: https://www.thrivingmission.org/post/compassion-fatigue-awareness-info-session.

 

Email Jim today with questions or to secure your spot: jimotremba@gmail.com.


About Jim

Jim has been married to Maureen since 1995. They are frequent presenters of retreats and workshops for couples, deacons and their wives, and lay ministers around the United States. Jim holds a master of divinity from Saint John’s University and a master’s degree in applied psychology from St. Cloud State University; he is finishing his doctoral degree in psychology. Jim is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker in Minnesota and has stewarded the Center for Family Counseling, Inc. in St. Cloud since 2001. Jim and Maureen are the primary authors of Fully Engaged, a pre-marriage, catechetical inventory used in over 50 percent of US dioceses. Jim has been coaching lay and ordained Catholic ministers since 2009 and finds his work as a Catholic coach very rewarding. Jim’s coaching finds inspiration in the Letter to the Ephesians: “May he give you the power through his Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong” (Ephesians 3:17).

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