Leadership and succession planning session held at St Ignatius Church

Monsignor Mitchel shared several enlightening stories, which touched many hearts so that most of us were glad we came for this formation. For instance, he stressed that a leader need not be perfect (just as Jesus didn’t choose perfect disciples) but with guidance and God’s grace, any person can be groomed to be a leader to serve the Lord.

Jan 31, 2019

By Emily Bong
About 70 core team members from the various BECs in St Ignatius Church (SIC) spent an enlightening and inspirational Saturday on 19 Jan at a formation on leadership skills and succession planning. Coordinated by the Archdiocesan BEC Animating Team (ABECAT), the formation was facilitated by Monsignor Mitchel Joseph and our own Rita Krishnan, who is chairperson of ABECAT.

The participants were pleasantly surprised when His Grace Most Reverend Julian Leow, Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur, dropped in at the start unannounced. He was on his way to another function and decided to just drop by. In his short address, he encouraged us to keep up the good work in our BECs. Several topics were covered in the formation, and group discussions were held.

Monsignor Mitchel shared several enlightening stories, which touched many hearts so that most of us were glad we came for this formation. For instance, he stressed that a leader need not be perfect (just as Jesus didn’t choose perfect disciples) but with guidance and God’s grace, any person can be groomed to be a leader to serve the Lord.

We shared views on what important steps we must take to build our BECs, ways to increase trust in our BEC community and emulating Jesus’ nine traits/characteristics (never promote oneself, obedient to the Holy Spirit, cast a vision, team builder, relationship builder, control with Christ authority, know how to engage in head on crisis, daily prayer and empower people).

A clip from the movie “A Bug’s Life” was shown where the ants faced a crisis, and we were asked how we would respond if we faced a similar situation. Here, we learnt that we should instil the following for our BEC have a common goal, work as a team, be joyful and happy workers, and plan with a vision in mind.

We also need to be positive thinkers  be an encourager rather than a discourager. Therefore, as core team members we should help each other out and do our part to serve God and our neighbourhood as a community of Christ with love and compassion.

Monsignor Mitchel also shared that BECs were started in Central America in response to a crisis where the elite were suppressing the peasants. The poor then set up small cell groups to fend for themselves, with priests joining to help them. This movement then spread to Asia.

In Malaysia, Monsignor Mitchel said BECs play an important role as they would be at the fore front to preserve the faith should a crisis occur, for instance, if churches are closed down or there are not enough priests to serve the people. --stignatiuspj.org

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