Apollos Project

"I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow."

The Catholic Church in the United States continues to grow, while the number of clergy continues to decline. The opposing trends reveal the inevitability of a more diverse leadership in the Church. Despite the call of Vatican II to reclaim a theology of baptismal call to ministry, efforts to integrate a new generation of ministers into parish life have been uneven. There is still no national plan for the selection, formation, education and integration of professional lay ministers into parish life.

The Apollos Project will enable Aquinas Institute of Theology to establish a five-year collaborative partnership with thirty-five parishes from among the Archdiocese of St. Louis, and the Dioceses of Belleville, Jefferson City, Springfield-Cape Girardeau, and Springfield, Illinois.

The Apollos Project derives its name from the letter to the Corinthians, in which St. Paul says, "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow." (1 Corinthians 3:6) Aquinas Institute of Theology recognizes that even though the Holy Spirit initiates ministry and brings it to perfection, the seed must be watered. Working together, this project will enable parishes and Aquinas Institute to "water the seed" of collaborative parish ministry that was planted by Vatican II. This partnership will enable us to:

develop a communications campaign and a series of on-site parish consultations to raise awareness among parishes about the importance of new models of ministry;
create sustainable habits of enhanced congregational participation in the selection, formation, and support of a new generation of candidates for ministerial leadership;
award fellowships for the education, formation and integration of students into actual parish settings through a three- or four-year period of study and ministry;
invite pastors to enhance their collaborative ministry skills so that they may effectively incorporate the gifts of lay ecclesial ministers to reduce their own work load, and improve the overall quality of parish ministry.

Key Elements of the Apollos Project
The Apollos Project is composed of these primary elements:

Research / Strategic Communications Campaign
The Apollos Project is about more than preparing well-qualified, well-educated lay ministers to lead the Catholic Church. It also is about changing attitudes. After identifying participating parishes, Aquinas Institute will research attitudes among Catholics about the priest shortage, their ideas about the future of leadership in the Catholic Church, and the role of the laity. The baseline research will be used to measure changes in attitudes among Catholics when the project ends in 2009.

In the interim, Aquinas Institute will launch a communications campaign among participating parishes challenging them to think about what leadership looks like in the 21st- century Church and the role they play in shaping that leadership.

Parishes
Aquinas Institute will work with participating parishes to begin the process of developing a model of ministry that involves both priests and professional lay ministers. About twenty-five parishes in the project will already have integrated the work of lay people at some level -- through volunteerism, perhaps, or employment. These parishes will identify lay ministers who can expand and enhance their leadership roles through the Apollos Project. These candidates are projected to begin part-time studies in Fall 2005.

A second track of parishes will have less experience with lay ministers. Aquinas Institute will walk with these parishes through an extensive process of identifying their own needs and calling forth a person from the community who has the potential to assume a leadership role in the parish but has not yet worked in the Church. These candidates are projected to begin full-time studies in Fall 2006.

In both cases, the parishes will acquire a greater understanding of how priests and lay ministers can form effective leadership teams. The project will provide parishes the tools to build the leadership team as well as prepare them for the personnel and financial considerations that accompany employing a lay minister.

Fellowships
Aquinas Institute of Theology will award scholarships to qualified women and men called forth by their parish communities. The fellows will pursue graduate degrees in theology and eventually begin part-time work in their parishes. Upon graduation, they will become full-time lay ministers in their parishes and serve in a collaborative relationship with their pastors to meet the ministerial needs of the parish.

Clergy
The Apollos Project honors the vital and irreplaceable role of the priest. Pastors whose parishes are participating in the project will meet for workshops to develop skills in ministerial teamwork and personnel planning, share best practices, and solve problems.

Aquinas Institute of Theology knows of no other similar initiative in the United States. This initiative will call attention to the demands placed upon priests when there are so few and challenge Catholics to assume more active roles in sustaining the Church. What distinguishes this effort is that it calls upon Catholics to take an active role in identifying potential ministers and supporting them as they pursue studies and begin their ministry careers.

We hope to dramatically change the attitudes of priests and parishioners in the thirty-five participating parishes, and through those parishes, create a ripple effect. We hope the parishes will begin to push for ministry models in which priests work with professional lay ministers to effectively meet the needs of their parish communities.