Judy Urban Consultant

Biography and Experience:

Judy has over 14 years experience in building church volunteer ministry systems. As Pastoral Associate for Shared Ministry at a large Catholic church in the Midwest for six years, she designed the position and built a system that involved over 3000 parishioners in 165 different ministries.

She works nationally with individual churches of various denominations as a consultant, meeting facilitator, and workshop presenter on topics in the field of Shared Ministry, Risk Management for Churches, Gift-Discovery and Gifts-based Ministry Systems. She coaches new directors of church volunteer ministries. She presents at regional, national, and international denominational and non-profit conferences.

Judy served as chair of the St Paul/Minneapolis Archdiocesan Parish Volunteer Ministry Advisory Board for two years.

She is past chair of the Association of Directors of Church Volunteer Ministries in Minnesota, the first state ecumenical association of its kind in the country.

Extensive volunteer experience in church and community organizations, as well as a background in business management and health counseling, and a degree in nursing, allow her to bring a breadth of vision and experience to her passion in life: building church volunteer systems based on a theology of gifts.

What am I about? Thoughts, musings, ideas, vision…

I am passionate about helping churches create a paradigm shift that invites and encourages full participation of all members of the congregation in all aspects of parish life.

My vision is of churches that:

actively seek out input from their members in the making of all major decisions affecting the most significant pieces of parish life.

invest councils, trustees, governing boards with real authority and decision-making responsibility, in partnership with the pastor and staff.

provide opportunities for growth in knowledge for the major committees and leadership groups of the congregation.

offer effective support for all members to contribute their talents and gifts in significant ways.

assist staff in making the challenging shift from being doers of programs and ministries, to becoming facilitators and resources for mobilizing the church members to be the doers.

It is a little scary to take the wraps off the person in the pew. There is a fear of loss of control, as ideas, energy, and responsibility bubble up to the surface of parish life. Things can get messy and complicated.

But I can’t begin to describe the joy at seeing a new ministry develop or one that was dying take new root. The possibilities are so exciting. And the best part of it is that we are enabling the spiritual maturation of the people of our churches by doing this kind of re-imagining, by changing to this new paradigm.

When you begin to hear the comment: “You know, I just love what I do” from a volunteer minister, in the service of God, what more could we ask?

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