Discipleship and Leadership Seminar

There were more than 300 participants logged into last Saturday’s ‘Discipleship and Leadership Seminar’ hosted by the Archdiocese’s Office of Pastoral Planning and Development (OPPD) and the Catholic Religious Education Development Institute on the Zoom platform.

The aim of the seminar was to “create a sensitivity to a new culture of leadership and discipleship in Church for the third millennium and in an environment of synodality”.

The seminar was arranged for clergy, religious, heads of Ministry Animation Teams, Ministries, Parish Pastoral Councils, and anyone interested in the Synod journey.

Archbishop Jason Gordon led the Opening Prayer and did the Welcome. Gary Tagallie of the OPPD served as moderator.

Presenters were General Secretary of the Antilles Episcopal Conference, Fr Donald Chambers – ‘Discipleship and Leadership in a synodal church’; Sr Gail Jagroop OP – ‘Servant Leadership in a synodal church’; Organisation Development Facilitator and Conversational Intelligence Coach, Judy Joseph McSween – ‘Human Relationships in a synodal church’; and Deborah de Rosia – ‘Living Discipleship in a synodal church’.

In her presentation, McSween said the Synod process will require those involved to “be conscious of how they proceed to build trust, and that comes from listening.” She also said as discussions continue, people will need to learn “the art of reframing to re-energise conversations”.

McSween said everyone was called to be in relationship with all that God has created and so, there will be need for times of silence “to move forward emotional intelligence and self-awareness”.

There were technical challenges during the breakout room sessions between the presentations, but these were soon resolved. —RS