For fifteen years, the Vincentian Center for Church and Society at St. John's University has been successfully training priests and pastoral leaders in management concepts and skills. Built upon this wealth of experience, "A Concise Guide to Catholic Church Management" connects the theory of academic training with the hands-on skills of pastoral practice. Today's pastoral leaders are required to understand effective communications, budgeting, staff management, and legal responsibilities--all through the lens of Catholic values and tradition. This veritable ministry bible offers pastors and administrators ten succinct, informative chapters and is supplemented by free online materials.

Topics related to Catholic social teaching emerge regularly in American political and civic discourse, often connected to discussions about religious freedom, abortion, immigrant rights, racism, capital punishment, and health care. This third edition of A Concise Guide to Catholic Social Teaching by Rev. Kevin E. McKenna incorporates the essential teachings of Pope Francis in Evangelium Gaudium, Laudato Si’, and Amoris Laetitia to offer a clear, beginner-level reference tool and study guide for Church leaders and other interested Catholics to help them navigate this vast body of teaching. Building on core themes of human dignity, community, rights and responsibilities, option for the poor, dignity of work, solidarity, and care of creation, McKenna distills a vast amount of Catholic teaching into easily digestible summaries, each carefully referenced to its primary source and correlated to pressing issues making today’s headlines. The book includes crucial teachings of the popes from Louis XIII through Francis as well as from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Each chapter concludes with questions for reflection and dialogue and appendices provide tools for parishes and study groups. This practical and thorough guide remains a perennial favorite for study and reference in Catholic parishes, universities, and ministry formation programs.

In all organizational settings, managing projects is an ever-increasing necessity. Large corporations have departments that institute procedures for implementing and tracking projects, but smaller organizations can also benefit from becoming aware of the steps undertaken in creating a project so they can maximize planned outcomes. Mitchell Springer, an expert in these areas, provides an invaluable guide that details program management in a concise and understandable manner. He teaches about various types of contracts and their benefits and shortcomings; a project's critical path and how it affects tasking; managing program risk; managing program costs; and the best way to deal with personalities and management issues that can lead to project completion or project disruption. This succinct reference is a valuable asset and should be on the desk of anyone involved with the intricate and costly business of program management.

Today’s parish leaders are expected to be holy and prayerful spiritual guides, great preachers and compassionate confessors, but also to make important decisions in key areas like finance, budgeting, hiring and firing, fundraising, risk management, relationship-building, and more—often with virtually no transition or training. And with all the requisite education in philosophy and theology they must provide future pastors, in addition to formation in priestly spirituality and pastoral care, seminaries can do little to prepare priests to deal with the difficult temporal issues pastors face. A Pastor’s Toolbox is designed to help fill that void. It is loaded with valuable information, insights, and practical tools that pastors need in order to begin handling the complexities of parish management in the twenty-first century.The book is an outgrowth of The Toolbox for Pastoral Management, a nationally recognized joint project of The National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management and Seton Hall University. The Leadership Roundtable is a nonprofit organization of Catholic lay leaders, religious, and clergy working together to promote excellence and best practices in the management, finances, communications, and human resources development of the Catholic Church in the U.S. through the greater incorporation of the expertise of the laity. Learn more at www.TheLeadershipRoundtable.org.

Roman Catholicism stands at a crossroads, a classic ''best of times, worst of times'' moment. On the one hand, the Catholic Church remains by far the largest branch of the worldwide Christian family, and is growing at a remarkable clip. Yet the Church has also been rocked by a series of scandals related to the sexual abuse of minors by clergy, and, even more devastating, the cover-up by the Church hierarchy. The decade-long crisis has taken a massive financial toll, but the blow to both the internal morale and the external moral standing of the Church has been even steeper. Today, the Church has enormous residual strength and exciting future prospects, but also faces steep internal and external challenges. The question of ''whither Catholicism'' is of vital public relevance, for believers and non-believers alike. In The Catholic Church: What Everyone Needs to Know, John L. Allen, Jr., one of the world's leading authorities on the Vatican, offers an authoritative and accessible guide to the past, present, and future of the Church. This updated edition includes a new chapter on the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, the election of Pope Francis, and his extraordinary tenure thus far.

Servant Leadership: Attitudes, Skills and Behaviours is for hands-on learners who want to develop a leadership style that will build effective organizations, achieve outstanding results and cultivate productive, 360-degree relationships. This book details a holistic leadership approach that builds a community of workers through a common mission and values, as well as through a shared vision. All workers, especially those in early career stages, will benefit by developing servant leadership attitudes, skills and behaviours. This book is dedicated to the increasingly popular servant leadership style, and is presented in an easy-to-read format, featuring examples of servant leadership behaviours, tables of tips and practices, and dozens of servant leadership questions for self-reflection.

Provides a brief, informative, readable, and very helpful explanation of basic parish management to pastors, priests from abroad, deacons, seminary students, pastoral and finance council members, and lay parish workers.

Models and Methods for Youth and Young Adult Ministry is a rare book on young adult and youth ministry in that it weaves sound theology and solid pastoral practice. It invites pastoral practitioners, scholars in the field, and university-ministry students to envision various models and methods for doing youth and young adult ministry in a collaborative and ecumenical way. Through rich, concrete examples and strategies, the reader will grasp the significance of each model and the various methods to integrate and implement these robust approaches. The result is this book will empower readers toward a more meaningful understanding of youth and young adult ministry, which will in turn engage the young church of Christ.

Dr. William Pickett brings over forty years of experience in administration and planning to A Concise Guide to Pastoral Planning, an essential guide for those charged with pastoral planning in the Catholic Church. Pickett gives clear direction and a range of options for addressing the multiple issues encountered in planning at three distinct levels of local church life: parish, deanery, and diocese. This book offers a wealth of information on creating effective and theologically, doctrinally, and pastorally sound planning models.

Making Parish Councils Pastoral traces the historical development of the ôpastoralö style of council and shows how councils can more effectively embrace the church's vision of studying and reflecting on parish matters and recommending their conclusions to the pastor.