Innovation in the era of Lay Leadership: Executive Director’s Report Oct 2025

Many new resources for MPJPs

These resources are the fruit of AMPJP’s participation in the innovative Inclusive Governance in a Synodal Church Project. They include country studies of MPJPs, the overall report on MPJPs and case studies of individual MPJPs including our own Good Samaritan Education.

These are accompanied by excellent papers on different aspects of MPJPs by some of the world’s leading experts, including key insights into lay leadership and canon law.

See them here.

LinkedIn Experiment has quick results

One of the key KPIs for my role as Executive Director of AMPJP is to increase knowledge and understanding of MPJPs and AMPJP. So I have trialled a presence on LinkedIn where many Catholic leaders are reading about the work of the Church.

I launched a trial in late June, with the aim of a daily post on a topic relevant and interesting to Catholic leaders. This can include commentary on current issues impacting parish life, Catholic education, health and aged care, or inspirational pieces on Australian Catholic heroes or the Pope’s latest writings.

The posts are mostly written in a two-hour period on the weekend and then scheduled for release during the week.

The LinkedIn posts have been gaining steady traction among Catholic leaders and ministry professionals online. In the four-month period there have been over 158,069 impressions (views). The posts combine data-driven insights with pastoral reflection, which aims to position AMPJP as a thought leader with Catholic managers and leaders interested in renewal, governance, and the vitality of the Church.

These posts are anecdotally the most viewed posts of any Catholic individual in Australia.

Once a certain strong position using more general content was reached within the LinkedIn algorithm, it was possible to add more information on MPJPs and also to repost posts of individual MPJPs, to broaden their reach.

The most viewed post (pictured) analysed new research on student and staff attitudes to belief in Catholic Education.

AMPJP Calendar for 2027 in formulation

We will be releasing a 2027 calendar draft with the aim of finalising it before the end of 2025. The aim is to reduce clashes with the many other meetings our Council and Committee members also attend as part of their work or volunteering.

In the footsteps of St Paul

I have spent much of this month in Greece, and have had the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of St Paul in Athens and Corinth. In Athens of course Paul preached at the Areopagus, a rocky outcrop on which meetings were held, and would have seen but as it was a Greek temple, probably not visited the Parthenon.

In Corinth we saw the harbours where Paul landed at the city, and of course the Bema, a raised stone judgement seat in the marketplace of Ancient Corinth where Paul was tried, and exonerated, by the Proconsul Gallio.

Talking of innovation, it was a very powerful experience to feel that close to the footsteps of the person who is often acknowledged as the practical founder of the Christian Church.  Paul’s resilience and entrepreneurship is seen in that he likely failed in Athens, but persevered and founded a very important church in Corinth.