Feel It! [Part 4]

In this series, we are looking at the role our emotions and convictions play in leadership and parish renewal. Good leaders lead themselves by cultivating the right emotions and convictions that will fuel them to keep moving forward even amidst adversity.

We looked at two ways to feel it.

• The first is to look to Jesus, who is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.
• The second way to feel it is to remember your calling.
• The third way we use emotions to lead parish renewal is:

Help others find the feeling.
This means we need to be intentional about helping others find the emotions that will help them make the necessary sacrifices for life change. This is not about manipulation but a recognition that God gives us emotions to move us in the right direction. Helping others find the feeling leverages the way God wired us.

In our weekend homilies and all our communication, we ask three questions:

1. What do we want people to know?
2. What do we want people to do?
3. How do we want people to feel?

There are different emotions to tap into: inspired, challenged, encouraged, curious, intrigued, and so on. The emotion we work to elicit depends upon the situation and where we hope to lead people.

On Christmas Eve or Easter, you want the newcomer to feel encouraged to come back and maybe curious to learn more about what God or the Church has to offer.

Leading up to those events, you might want your community to feel compassionate towards friends and family members who don’t know Christ and challenged to make an invitation.

If you are conducting a capital campaign or a stewardship weekend, you want your community to be inspired to give and grow in generosity.

The emotions we work to elicit will change with the situation and the audience, but the point is to be intentional about those feelings and to change up the emotions you elicit. If we are always making people feel challenged - then our community will get tired. If we always encourage and make them feel good about themselves - then a community will never move or make the necessary changes.

In addition to our spoken communication, are the environments we create. The spaces in your building communicate something. Be intentional about creating the feel that will welcome people and drive life change.

Music plays an incredibly important role in the emotions we elicit from people.  Make sure you are intentional about your music selections at Mass and how different moments are making people feel. This is especially true for big events.  If you want people to move, then you have to help them feel it as well.

Conclusion

Our emotions are always moving us in one way or another. They drive our actions more than we care to admit. Feel it recognizes that we have a choice. We will either feel fear and doubt and worry, or we will choose to feel a sense of urgency, feel emboldened to make much-needed change. We can choose to foster feelings of compassion for the lost and joy at the return of one lost sheep. We can choose to feel excited by the challenge to always do more to build God’s kingdom.

Feel it is about leveraging the power of conviction and emotions to bring about a better future in our parishes. Leveraging emotions and convictions will give us the power we need to get started, help us get others on board our work, build momentum in the parish and get us through difficult times and challenges. To make progress we need to feel it.

Rooting for you,
Tom