A recently-developed program in the Columbus diocese for first-time pastors, including pastors new to the diocese, was held Sept. 15-18. The four-day workshop united veteran pastors and lay leaders with priests undertaking leadership roles in parishes.
The program was designed to equip new pastors with skills needed to successfully run a parish. A pastor’s work extends beyond the pastoral and spiritual side, often handling management, finances and human resources among other responsibilities.
Several lay leaders and senior diocesan staff members offered their wisdom in a series of sessions.
“What is beautiful about this program is that it demonstrates the co-responsibility we all share for the mission of evangelization. Experienced priests and pastors, as co-workers with the bishop, mentor younger priests, sharing a lifetime’s worth of experience and wisdom. The talents and experience of lay people are utilized to bring the best practices from the world of business and leadership into the life and ministry of priests,” Bishop Earl Fernandes said.
“Young priests, while being fully rooted in their priestly identity, begin to appreciate the gifts of their elders in the priesthood and the gifts of the laity, who, rather than wanting to replace priests, want our priests to be more effective. When our priests are more effective that translates into growth in holiness, the building up of the Church and the spread of the Gospel.”
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Joe Hamrock, a Westerville St. Paul the Apostle parishioner and former president and CEO of NiSource, parent company of Columbia Gas of Ohio, spoke at the workshop. He and Kevin Lowry, the diocese’s senior director for the Office of Finance, shared their experience, speaking about parish operations, finance and budgets.
“It wasn’t designed to make them financial experts in one day,” Hamrock said of his and Lowry’s talks. “It’s designed to say, ‘Here’s what your finance council should be helping you to see and understand; here’s the things you ought to be tuned into as a pastor,’ and it seems like it’s been well received so far.”
Hamrock, now retired, spent decades in the electric and gas utilities industry. He held various roles during his career, including leading technology and customer service teams, companies and as CEO.
“In well-run organizations you’ll see certain traits, … certain capabilities,” he said. “The vision was to bring that insight into the room to help them benefit from that, and at the same time, respecting that the role of a pastor is so distinctly different from the role of a secular leader because they’re configured to Christ.”
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Hamrock shared wisdom acquired from leading secular organizations with priests who are new to leading parishes.
“I’ve been through those cycles where it felt overwhelming and felt like I didn’t understand what the team was talking about, and I learned that that’s not really what leadership is about,” he confessed.
“Leadership is about inspiring, motivating, bringing out the best in the people that we’re blessed and charged to lead, and encouraging them to bring their best. And so, pastors have a wonderful opportunity.”
Father Dave Young, pastor at Zanesville St. Nicholas and St. Thomas churches, has served at various parishes. He was ordained a priest in 2004 and assigned as pastor shortly after his first assignment at Columbus St. Agatha Church.
“When I was first made a pastor, I’d only been ordained a year and a half, and I still had a lot to learn – and I learned quite a bit as a new pastor in my first assignment,” Father Young said.
“One of the reasons I wanted to be involved in this was to help guys learn those lessons before they were faced with the challenges. When the diocese asked me to be part of this, I felt great conviction.”
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Following his first assignment, he served as pastor at Ada Our Lady of Lourdes, Kenton Immaculate Conception and Reynoldsburg St. Pius X churches before relocating to Zanesville.
The veteran priest offered a talk on caring for the self, which includes taking time for prayer, spiritual direction, friendship and renewal.
He considered Christ’s encounter with the Samaritan woman. The Lord arrived at the well tired and left refreshed.
Father Young encouraged new pastors to imitate Christ, to be refreshed and receive God’s gifts. Sacrifice is essential, he acknowledged, but priests need to be filled by God to pour themselves out to their flock.
“If we are only going to rely on ourselves, we’re not going to go far at all. We need Him to fill us up to be the priest He wants us to be,” Father Young explained.
“We’ve been rightfully taught that sacrifice is essential to the priesthood, but we have to have something inside to sacrifice.”
Father Seth Keller, who was ordained a priest in 2020, began his first pastorate this year at Columbus Immaculate Conception Church. He previously spent two years studying in Rome; as parochial vicar at Marion St. Mary, Cardington Sacred Hearts and Columbus St. Cecilia churches and chaplain at Columbus Bishop Ready High School.
“There’s a lot thrown at you,” he admitted of being a pastor. “People have been so kind, so welcoming where I am, at Immaculate Conception; it’s been great.
“One of the hardest things is just figuring out, okay, what do I do first? There (are) so many things I need to do, and there’s other things that would be nice to do – and there’s things people are asking me to do.
“How do I find what should be done first, and how then do I go about doing those things? So, it’s challenging in just the sheer volume of things in the different areas that you’re working in.”
Subsequent workshops for new pastors are set to continue Jan. 12-14, 2027, and April 21-22. As part of the program, they will also meet with mentor priests for a year following the workshops.
“This has been helpful because some of these things we knew already or we learned, but now, when you’re a pastor, you’re actually learning through experience as you see these things happening,” Father Keller reflected. “You’re able to really apply them in a way you weren’t before.
“So, even though we had some formation in seminary and some formation on our own throughout our time as a priest, it’s different when you’re actually the pastor and you see it with new eyes.”