Laypeople find their place in vocation ministry

In the modern Catholic Church, there are more and more examples of roles traditionally held only by priests or religious that are now being restructured or staffed differently. Catholic high schools, perennially run by a priest or religious as president or principal, are turning to a lay administrator. Diocesan offices that once depended on priests and religious to direct various departments are now appointing laypeople to director roles within the bishop’s staff. Vocation ministry offices, once the purview of only professed religious, are likewise incorporating more lay staff into the work. The National Religious Vocation Conference currently counts 71 laypeople on its membership rolls.

Chris Swain, director of the Office of Lasallian Vocation Ministry, remembers few lay folks involved in vocation ministry when he started 10 years ago, but now he works with many more. “I think communities are recognizing the value of having collaborators to partner with who know the charism of the congregation and bring specific gifts and talents to share,” Swain says.

As this structure becomes more common in religious vocation ministry offices, let’s take a closer look at who might fit, how and why it works, and why it might be a fit for more communities that have yet to give it a try.

How this becomes a fit

Foundationally, laypeople bring a different perspective from outside religious life. For Renee Dee, national vocation director for the Missionaries of La Salette, the basic daily life of a lay staff member is a helpful addition. “Laypeople are out in the workforce, around the water cooler, in the grocery store, in the church pews. Our role as parishioners and as laypeople is to spread the word. Vocation ministry is really just a layer upon what we ought to be living out anyway,” Dee says, noting that her community widely utilizes lay committees in their parishes already.

Additionally, while married people did not discern into religious life or the priesthood, many considered it earlier in life and, even in choosing marriage, became serious practitioners of faithful discernment. Ernie Garrido, vocations recruiter for the Paulist Fathers, likes how his background adds to the range of his team. “I am married after having seriously discerned religious life and the priesthood. I think my vocation complements our ministry and lets discerners and their families know that the journey is about being open to the call of the Holy Spirit,” Garrido says.

Swain adds that such collaboration between professed and laypeople reflects the breadth of vocation in the church and Christ’s baptismal call. “It’s a blessing to bring all I am as a married person, a parent, and an adult to this work,” Swain says. “We need to see the wider landscape of the call to holiness and the variety of ways we’re called to live this out. That’s a great point of entry for all of us to enter into this work and share in it together.”

For some communities, the transition toward collaborating with laity in vocation ministry can happen quite naturally. “Our Lasallian charism emphasizes shared mission between vowed brothers and partners. We want to respond creatively and faithfully in ministry, and a shared approach in vocation ministry fits,” Swain says. “This frees the brothers directing vocations to accompany men in discernment in a more present and active way, and it empowers me to support them in collaborative, communication centered efforts.”

Dee says that in her office, it was mostly just getting past the “new job” curve. “When I first started, some older priests were taken aback, but sharing what I do in the office and building the relationships and rapport has made it a non-issue,” Dee says. “I was invited to community meals, and I would go about once a week. I would stand there and pray with the group. Then, one day, they slid the card to me and invited me to lead for the week.”

The shared kinship that laity finds with a religious community, whether through lay association, belonging to the communities within a congregation’s sponsored ministries, or just from social friendships, can also lead to a smooth transition. Garrido drew on his long connection to hit the ground running. “Though I am new to vocations ministry, I have known the Paulist Fathers and their charism for over 25 years,” Garrido says. “It helped me feel confident about my ability to aid their vocations efforts because I consider the Paulists my spiritual mentors.”

A division of labor

Practically speaking, many vocation directors serve multiple roles for their congregation and/or the ministries the community sponsors. If they have limited time or divided attention, they likely need help that may not come from brothers or sisters within their congregation who also face similar constraints and demands. While a team approach among religious is a common way to share the responsibility of vocation ministry, hiring lay staff can subdivide responsibilities to allow each vocation minister to be most effective.

Typically, intentional accompaniment with a discerner is left mostly or completely to professed religious, particularly those trained by NRVC professional development workshops. Their experience in discernment, formation, and vowed living is invaluable and essential to sound discernment of religious life. However, many of the components preceding serious discernment can be performed at least partially by lay staff members. Among his many duties as a lay staffer, Swain supports the vocation directors of his three provinces with communications and collaboration while sustaining the website and organizing conference exhibitions. Dee coordinates inquiries and funnels them to her regional vocation directors while maintaining outreach to the missionaries’ parish vocation teams. Garrido works on the website, social media, and multimedia content to constantly gather quality photos and videos and design compelling content. Then, within and beyond these responsibilities each of these ministers takes on, they find opportunities to complement the work of their professed members and use their unique gifts.

“My role is to support their ministry, primarily in communication and collaboration. I can help ensure visibility to an external audience who may not yet know the community, the brother vocation, or the Lasallian brother vocation,” Swain says, emphasizing how he may help fill gaps or widen the reach of his community.

Dee enjoys the chance to offer a lay perspective to inquirers, which frees her to talk up the great work of her colleagues a bit more than they may do themselves. “I may be the first point of contact for a gentleman wishing to learn more until I connect him to a priest. The positive is that they get a perspective from a lay person that balances the clergy perspective,” Dee says. “At times,  priests and brothers may be uncomfortable, feeling like they are bragging. They are quite humble. I can say what I see of them in community, collegiality, and support of one another.”

Garrido can lean on his professional experience as well as his language skills. “With a communications background and being fluent in Spanish, I can often be a big help when trying to communicate with family members of discerners. This allows our vocation director to focus on his priestly duties within the role and be available for spiritual counseling with discerners,” Garrido says.

Setting appropriate parameters

As a professed vocation director acclimates to working with lay staff, it may take some trial and error to work out the ideal collaboration. Sometimes, professed members may desire even more help than they initially imagined. Nonetheless, some areas of accompanying discerners must remain confidential, known only to the vocation director and the congregation’s leadership. 

Laypeople and professed religious must collaborate with due respect to their institute’s regulations and vocation ministry ethics, such as those in NRVC’s ethics code and its ethics workshops. For example, the vocation director may ask a lay staff member for help with inquiries. After the lay person sets up an inquiry database and manages the initial responses competently, the director asks for further assistance in designing, implementing, and tracking ongoing correspondence.

On the other hand, maybe the vocation director could ask a lay staff member to arrange a psychological evaluation. Perhaps the lay person arranges the appointment, confirms the details with the evaluator and the applicant, and completes payment on behalf of the congregation for the service after it’s rendered. However, the final report is handled only by the vocation director, who corresponds directly with the evaluator to ensure confidentiality within the congregation. It might make sense for a lay staff member to help create a template or documentation format for application materials, the vocation director’s work with an applicant, and an eventual presentation of a candidate to leadership. However, the materials and information in an application must ethically remain within the congregation’s leadership and its appointed agents, particularly the vocation director. 

Finding candidates and making the leap

For religious communities with third orders or lay membership, it makes sense to consider prospective hires from that group. For example, the Paulists have women and men associates with strong connections to the community who desire to align with the spirituality and charism, and the La Salettes have associates who take an annual vow and try to live the charism in their daily lives.

Moreover, religious women and men with strong pastoral inclinations often identify laypeople in their professional and personal networks who have deep spirituality, pastoral skills, or social strengths. They may be good candidates, especially if they possess the clerical, administrative, or communications skills that a professed person needs on a vocation team. 

It also makes sense to check with alumni programs in a community’s sponsored schools, put out feelers to pastoral councils and parish leadership teams, or turn to familiar young adults seeking deeper belonging in a mission-driven job. Laypeople who know the community from volunteering or working in a sponsored ministry are another group worth connecting with when seeking vocation personnel. 

As a lay staff member, Dee acknowledges that lay and ordained people are always trying to figure out how to balance their vocations and collaborate best. “There is definitely respect, not priests’ acting top-down, but laypeople wanting to run things by the priests in charge. Our provincial superior has been so open about including and incorporating laypeople, and the priests have been a part of that very inclusively,” Dee says. “Pope Francis taught that [the] laity, by our baptismal promises, are called to take the message out into the world. That’s exactly what we’re trying to do.”

Tapping into the faith and mission-driven heart of well-suited laypeople could bring great energy to a vocation office. “Since the Paulists accompanied me and enriched my own spiritual journey, I am genuinely honored when I can produce content, communicate with others, or represent the Paulists at an event or conference,” Garrido says. “My sincere hope is that my work reflects my joy for my Catholic faith through the Paulist charism, and that, in turn, will encourage young men to discern religious life and the priesthood with the Paulist Fathers.”

Swain encourages communal discernment as the best way forward. “The invitation to communities is to consider present needs and what the fit for lay contributions may be. You can always look at peer communities and identify things you’d like to do in ministry, in outreach, or on websites as a way of brainstorming. However, more realistically, you can ask prayerfully, ‘What is the next faithful step to acknowledge what you have in the community and what you can invite a new partner to contribute that isn’t already present?’”

As communities discern internally, sound external discernment is needed. Communities need to think about their candidate profile, the audiences for their outreach, and the groups they want to reach–and let this inform potential new hires. “I encourage communities to embrace how a lay person’s perspective can work in conjunction with the members of the community. The more [roles] we can give to people who come with a variety and diversity of backgrounds, the better prepared we can be to meet [inquirers] where they are,” Dee says.

As vocation ministers know, so much of the work is about invitation. At root, vocation ministers strive to help potential discerners realize that religious life is a possibility for them. Their presentation must be credible, which surely comes in part from their passion, authenticity, and being prepared with compelling promotional materials, a joyful presence both in person and online, and a thoughtful presentation of their religious community.

As vocation offices strive for maximally effective ministry, prioritizing invitation and discernment in the hiring process can be helpful. For laypeople to become a helpful, beneficial part of a vocation office, the religious community must extend a credible, authentic invitation to laypeople, many of whom probably have never imagined themselves working for a religious community in vocation ministry. 

“Often, there are many laypeople with wonderfully relevant lived experience with the community,” Swain says. “If you look around at the people in your orbit and across your networks, there may be someone who is just one invitation away from becoming a great asset to your vocation ministry.”

Dan Masterton is the communications director for the Viatorians (Clerics of St. Viator). He met them as a St. Viator High School student and is now a Viatorian associate. Masterton has published two ministry-related books and several articles. He lives in Bolingbrook, Illinois, with his wife and three children.  Find his writing and contact him at linktr.ee/danmasterton.