A one-of-a-kind pilot program now underway for archdiocesan pastors will give them top-notch business management training along with formation on the theology of management. The University of St. Mary of the Lake’s Ongoing Formation for Priests Program is partnering with the Center for Nonprofit Management at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management to offer a certificate in advanced pastoral leadership. The seven-session program started in September with 40 pastors from around the archdiocese. They come from a variety of parishes, ethnicities and ages. The cost for each priest to participate is paid for through professional development funds and the parish. Kellogg runs four daylong sessions and USML runs three. The Kellogg faculty cover such topics as leadership, team building, managing generations, finance, stewardship, negotiations and decision-making. The USML faculty takes care of the theology. Other universities or dioceses have management programs for priests, but what makes this one different is the integral theological component alongside the business, said Father Thomas Baima, provost of University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein. In developing this program, Baima said, he looked at various good training programs for priests but noticed they left it to the priest to integrate the business skills into his ministerial life. “It was nonprofit management repackaged for the church,” Baima said. Baima developed the theological component of the program and looked within the Catholic tradition, pulling from resources on governance that make up the Catholic theology of leadership. He’s pulling from some of the masters like St. Gregory the Great and St. Benedict. “We will be drawing out of our own theological tradition,” he said. There are sessions about the identity of a priest as a pastor, the role a pastor at a parish and the pastor as part of the larger archdiocesan church. This “theology of management” is what makes this program different. “It really is something that hasn’t been done before,” Baima said. Cardinal George, Msgr. John Canary, vicar general, and the auxiliary bishops nominated pastors for the program. Each priest had to serve as a pastor for at least five years and demonstrate success at his parish. The goal of the program is to take people who are already successful and give them new tools and ideas to build on that success, said Baima. This is a unique opportunity for pastors, said Liz Livingston Howard, associate and academic director at the Center for Nonprofit Management. “You have people who came to leadership through the mission side … but when you get into leadership all of a sudden you are running a business,” said Howard. “This program is an opportunity for pastors and leaders to gain some of that theoretical and academic grounding in nonprofit management,” Howard said. It took about two years to put the pilot program together, said Father Martin Zielinski, director of ongoing formation for priests at the University of St. Mary of the Lake. After this pilot is over, it will be evaluated for use in the future, but Zielinski is confident this program will bear fruit. “It’s going to help their parishes ultimately. They [the pastors] see this as another dimension of shepherding,” Zielinski said. Many of our parishes are like small corporations with their buildings, schools, staff and volunteers. This program will help the pastors hone their analytical skills and help them develop new ideas, “but keeping in mind the spiritual side,” he said. “You can’t say you’re only going to focus on spiritual and sacramental side. Eventually the roof will leak,” Zielinski added.