When I worked for the Office for Catholic Schools at a Diocese, I had a wonderful supervisor who became a mentor to me.\u00a0 She was incredibly perspicacious, realizing and telling me that organization was not one of my strengths when I had always thought it was.<\/p>\n
She wisely told me, “You don’t have to work at your strengths.\u00a0 You work at being organized.\u00a0 One of your strengths is thinking systemically.”<\/p>\n
I started to learn more about systems thinking, and realized that it was a third type of thinking that needs to be identified and exercised in leadership, along with linear thinking and process thinking.<\/p>\n
After leaving the Diocese and starting to work with faith-based and private schools, a principal heard one of the presentations I made at a conference, saying how all elements of a system must be identified, realizing that all elements of a systems need to work together to produce a desired result with as few unintended consequences as possible.<\/p>\n
The principal asked if I’d come to her school to give the presentation to her board, and of course, I agreed.<\/p>\n
When I arrived a few weeks later, I was surprised to discover that not only were there members of the school’s board, but the parish’s pastoral council, finance council and other parents as well.\u00a0 It was then I discovered that the pastor was also the Apostolic Administrator for the Diocese, since their Bishop had been appointed as the Bishop of another Diocese, and they were waiting for a new shepherd to be appointed by the Pope.<\/p>\n
My presentation was about the elements of advancement – asset management, retention, marketing, education, and development – all working together to enable schools today to not just survive, but thrive.\u00a0 If any of those elements were missing, the school suffers.<\/p>\n
I also mentioned that this systemic relationship is present in parishes, but can be named differently – fellowship, initiation, revenue management, evangelization and stewardship, creating the FIRES” framework.\u00a0 The reference is appropriate since the Holy Spirit came to those in the upper room after Jesus’ ascension in the form of tongues of fire.<\/p>\n
I also stated that I use a tetrahedron as an example of how the elements work together.\u00a0 3 of the five elements are easily seen.\u00a0 But there’s one that’s not usually seen as belonging to the three, but if it wasn’t there, the system of just 3 elements wouldn’t properly function, or, perhaps, even exist.\u00a0 To make the system complete there is a 5th element that usually hidden and must be discovered for the system to make sense.<\/p>\n
I then said, “It’s like the system of our salvation,” as I held the tetrahedron up in front of the group.\u00a0 The three sides of what’s commonly known as a 3 sided pyramid are the Holy Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n
“But what is the fourth element that ties them together?”<\/p>\n
After a minute of silence, someone from the back of the room said, “Mary?”<\/p>\n
Yes!\u00a0 And it’s Mary’s yes that made this possible.\u00a0 God the Father said to Mary that she would be overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, and she would give birth to Jesus.\u00a0 She said, “Yes.”<\/p>\n
“What do you think would happen if she said, ‘No?'”<\/p>\n
Another person in the room said, “We wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing.”<\/p>\n
Indeed!<\/p>\n
So since she said “Let it be done to me according to your word,” there is a fifth element that’s formed by the connection, since Mary and be considered the base of the shape.\u00a0 It connects to all three of the visible sides.<\/p>\n
But there’s a fifth side to the tetrahedron, and that’s the inside.\u00a0 It’s the side that no one sees.<\/p>\n
I continued, “And since this is the system of our salvation, what do you think the inside is?”<\/p>\n
“Me?” one person asked.<\/p>\n
“Not ‘me,'” I replied, “Since it’s the system of our<\/em> salvation.”<\/p>\n “Us!” said another, and I said, “You got it.\u00a0 We are all brothers and sisters in Christ, and we all play a role in building the Kingdom of God.”<\/p>\n After the presentation the pastor approached me while everyone was having refreshments and asked, “Where did you get your degree in theology?”\u00a0 I said I didn’t have a degree in theology, and I came to understand that concept after finding systems at work in a number of areas, so it just seemed to make sense.”<\/p>\n He said, “That’s too bad,” at which point I thought he was going to chide me about how that wasn’t the way things were.<\/p>\n Instead, he said, “I was hoping you learned that concept at a college because I would like to learn more about that, since it describes the relationship quite well, as we are all held together by the Holy Trinity through Mary.”<\/p>\n Indeed, the Holy Spirit does give you words.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I worked for the Office for Catholic Schools at a Diocese, I had a wonderful supervisor who became a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2309,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tetrahedronics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Tetrahedronics.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2ggCS-1VI","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7422"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7577,"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7422\/revisions\/7577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}