Wednesday 13 August 2014

So You Work in a Faith-Based Agency

Many of my friends and colleagues find themselves working in social service agencies that were founded by religious women like the Sisters of the Good Shepherd; programmes all across North America and, indeed, around the world.  For many of them this has been a source of resonance with their own values and beliefs.  It has been comfortable to know that people like the Sisters ‘had their back’ in the way they believed clients they serve should be treated.  The modelling of values like dignity, healing relationships, individual worth and compassionate care by the Sisters encouraged and helped to inform the environment within which they worked.  For some, ‘this has been a job made in heaven’.
Today most of those same agencies do not have the physical presence of those founding partners to inspire the work.  And yet these same agencies espouse the heritage legacy of the Sisters, et al.  Some of my colleagues now complain that their agency is losing that informed and inspired environment.  Herein lies the question.  Are faith-based programs or inspired environments solely dependent of those founding models being present?  One has heard so many persons of great wisdom including the likes of Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, etc. share that the grandest challenge of life is not so much in changing the world but in changing ourselves.  If the work environment we have chosen to spend our professional lives in is important enough, then how do we individually address how we might become those who inspire and inform that environment.  Perhaps we might even help create a work environment that is more informed and more inspired than what the founders had envisioned.
I would dare say that even organizations that are not faith-based but which were founded by truly inspired persons in their field go through similar challenges when the founder, finally let’s go of control.  Some of them get caught in the cycle of ‘Founders Syndrome’ and can actually get stuck, or worse, lose ground and momentum in their business due to the challenge of making this transition.  One of our agencies in the Good Shepherd network has adopted a guiding principle for all of their strategic planning cycles.  It simply reads, “Proud of Our Heritage, Defining Our Future.”  It has helped them not to get stuck in the past while embracing all things new based on the heritage principles they have been taught.
Whatever the principles we have been gifted with, the operative questions for each of us are, ‘How can I make these my own in the way I conduct myself professionally?’  What is it I can do to add value to my organization?  Do I have some creative juices and ideas to contribute and will I exercise the courage to share these with others in the agency and with the ‘brass’?  If I have already discovered the core strengths that exist in my agency, how can I make them more identifiable?  What activities would help to nurture these core strengths?  And if I were to dream about making this work the work of my dreams, what might I personally contribute to the agency?  How can I inspire deeper team collaboration?  Is there some area of interest that I could give some extra time to (Staff wellness, outdoor education or peer groups for both staff and clients)?

Do you still believe in the work of your agency?  Is this work still a source of meaning and purpose in your personal and professional life? Then nurture that faith; nurture that purpose.  Nurture your peers and leaders because we know that there are those assigned certain leadership roles but so many more real leaders within the rank ‘n file of every agency.  Be the change you wish to make, be the spirit you wish to enjoy, be the agency you wish to see as alive and well.  That reality is dependent on you not the founders.  Your founders left you a ‘gift’.   The sisters call that gift their charism…….use it yourself!  For those founded by Good Shepherd ask, How can I be more Good Shepherd?  However you define the gift you have been given, make it your own!