Father Wil Steinbacher, Glenmary’s point person for home mission leadership, wants to ensure that Glenmary’s approach to home mission ministry and its experience working with lay leaders can be put to the service of the larger Church.

Following a September meeting in Nashville of the Home Mission Leadership Conference (HMLC), that dream is closer to becoming a reality because members voted to move forward with its Collaborative Ministry Development Initiative.

The HMLC is a group of religious institutes who share a charism of serving home mission dioceses. The religious institutes include: Glenmary, Josephites, Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity, Sacred Heart Fathers and Brothers, Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, Southern Province Dominicans, Ursuline Sisters of Mount St. Joseph and Victory Noll Missionary Sisters.

Through the initiative, administered by Father Wayne Cavalier and the Congar Institute for Ministry Development, home mission dioceses can request full-service consultations to help in the formation of lay ministers.

Consultations, led by those with skills and expertise in the area of lay ministry, will include an inventory of all programs and resources a diocese has available.

One of the first consultations the group has scheduled is for the Diocese of Salt Lake City which is facing growth in the Catholic population but a shortage of priests and religious.

Father Wil says as the number of religious community members declines, more lay people are being called to answer their baptismal call to participate in the mission of the Church by bringing their faith to the world.

“We see the growing influence of lay people as a really significant movement of the Holy Spirit,” Father Wil says.