Ministry Formation Resources

CHA’s Ministry Formation for All Workers provides a grounding rationale and leading practices for how individuals across the full continuum of care delivery in Catholic health ministries in the United States experience ministry formation. It includes examples of formation for all workers that can be adapted to strengthen the Catholic identity within your system or organization.Today's workers yearn for a sense that their labor makes a difference, connects to something meaningful, and contributes to a social good. Formation for all workers aims to support diverse individuals in connecting their sense of meaning and purpose with the work and mission of Catholic health care to enliven God’s healing love.Ministry Formation for All Workers in PracticeLearn how two ministries bring meaningful formative touchstones to all team members and how this impacts employee morale, patient care, and strengthens Catholic identity. AscensionSarah Reddin, Vice President of Ministry Formation at Ascension, highlights the importance of group prayer and reflection in worker formation. She emphasizes the need to teach leaders how to craft and facilitate reflections and create resources for others to use. The formation team generates daily reflections published on internal internet sites and print resources.Daily Reflections: Follow a set rubric of content, reflection, question, call to action, and prayer.Integration Strategy: Focuses on reaching direct care providers and physicians.Impact: Group reflection improves team morale and patient care.Physician Engagement: Reflection practice nurtures meaning and purpose, increases engagement and well-being.Brad McNabb, an executive leader, discusses the importance of group reflection in the medical group and its impact on team morale and patient care. Dr. Allison Bollinger, an emergency department physician, shares insights on the practice of reflection and its impact on physician engagement and well-being.CHRISTUS HealthRyan Conklin, the Program Director for Ministry Formation at CHRISTUS Health, discusses CoreFocus, the formation experience designed for all CHRISTUS Health associates. The formation experience includes three-minute reflections that encourage associates to live out the core values daily. The process involves four steps: discovery, design, delivery, and outcomes.Discovery: Gathering insights from various team members and integrating patient and employee satisfaction data.Design: Creating a pedagogical design that adds value at the corporate, local, and individual levels.Delivery: Creating an accessible platform for associates in the US and Latin America.Outcomes: Measuring the impact of the formation experience.The feedback has been positive, with a 96% approval rating from over 200 leaders and more than 4,000 individual users engaging with the platform since its launch in January 2024. The call to action for associates is to use the core focus tool during reflection time at the beginning of meetings and huddles.

This grounding document was created in collaboration with CHA members. Leaders have come to recognize the crucial importance of formation in ensuring the Catholic identity of our ministries. The resource expands upon Luke’s account of the “Road to Emmaus” as the scriptural paradigm for the formation process. From that model of listening, communing, and moving in a new direction with renewed zeal and hope, the framework articulate:   Six Foundational Elements: Vocation, Tradition, Spirituality, Catholic Social Tradition, Ethics, DiscernmentCompetencies for Leaders of Ministry Formation: Facilitation, Presentation, Theology, Spirituality, Leadership, & Personal Qualifications The imperative to foster community committed to the health ministry of Jesus.  

Today's challenging economic environment leaves little room for businesses in any industry to expend resources that promise little or no return. The health care industry, and Catholic health care in particular, share this challenge. In the midst of these pressures, something appears to be happening within the Catholic health care community — something that speaks to the unique understanding we bring to our work.Many systems across the ministry are making a strong investment in well-structured, intensive leadership formation efforts. Noting this trend, CHA began an initiative to learn why this is being done and what the benefit or return on investment is.From this work, CHA, with feedback from hundreds of leaders representing the diversity of Catholic health care organizations, developed the Framework for Senior Leadership Formation.This is a framework that while not prescriptive, provides insight, practices and potential next steps. We hope it helps all Catholic health ministries in their formation and development activities.

This essential formation resource is a newly updated edition of the original authored in 1991 by Sister Juliana Casey, a member of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Monroe, Mich. Food for the Journey offers the story of Catholic health care as a sacrament of Christ’s healing mercy in our day. It provides leaders with insights into the relationship of the health care ministry of the Catholic Church, the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ, the social teaching of the Church and health care for those persons who are poor and vulnerable by way of tangible examples and easy to understand theological concepts.While the text of the 2013 edition of Food for the Journey remains the same as the original, the look has been updated. It is now available in several formats (see below) with the audio books being narrated by Sr. Juliana.A set of 5 note cards featuring the chapter cover images in the CHA resource, Food for the Journey: Theological Foundations of Catholic Healthcare Ministry are available here.

Published in 2015, the centennial year of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, Voices from the Journey celebrates the people of Catholic health care. Readers can reflect on their own personal experiences through the perspectives of a housekeeper, a sponsor, a physician, a family member, a patient and others through vivid personal narratives set in clinics, hospitals and continuum of care facilities.Each chapter begins with “The Word,” a Gospel proclamation or story of how Jesus spoke and acted, and continues with the voice of someone in the health care ministry who lives the Scripture day to day. Each chapter concludes with a blessing for all who share that voice’s role, followed by questions for personal or group reflection.The author, Sister Juliana Casey, Ph.D., a member of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Monroe, Michigan, builds on her highly-regarded book Food for the Journey, which offers insights into the health care ministry of the Catholic Church, the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ, the social teaching of the church and health care for those persons who are poor and vulnerable.Like its predecessor, Voices from the Journey will inspire and encourage the women and men who embody the healing ministry of Jesus and will provide a message of compassion and hope for those they serve. 

Caritas in Communion, begun as a white paper commissioned by the Catholic Health Association, engaged theologians, economists, public policy experts, health care executives and sponsors in a year-long study regarding the changing health care environment and its impact on the Catholic health ministry. The resulting book, authored by M. Therese Lysaught, moral theologian at Loyola University, Chicago, explores topics of Catholic Identity, the Principle of Cooperation, and ministry implications of for-profit business models. While this book was written specifically for Catholic health care, its implications for Catholic Identity in a pluralistic world extend beyond this ministry to Catholic education and social service organizations as well. This article serves as an executive summary of the book.

A Theological Reflection On Catholic Health Care as A Ministry of the Catholic ChurchThe collection of essays by prominent theologians and ministry leaders examines the theological foundation of Catholic health care that shapes our tradition and inspires our work in carrying out the healing ministry of Jesus today.  Developed as a companion to CHA's Caritas in Communion, the publication is a valuable resource for education and formation of boards, sponsors, senior executives and leadership teams in Catholic health care.  It is also an education resource for faculty and graduate students in bioethics, health care mission and leadership programs.

This guide will help users understand the role and importance of a Public Juridic Person (PJP): a legal entity in the Catholic Church that is established by canon law to perform a specific function.