This fall, an exciting new ministry is starting at Highland Park United Methodist Church.

Working Faith, part of the Mark Craig Leadership Network, will provide a leadership enrichment program designed to inspire and connect professionals through engaging speaker events and leadership development groups.

Its end goal is to equip leaders, whether they’re leading one person or an entire company, to integrate their faith into their work, connecting their beliefs from Sunday to Monday. The mission of the new network is:

“To leverage the leadership talent of Highland Park UMC members to create an enrichment program for working professionals to support better integration of their faith and their work with the goal of creating long-term servant leaders in the community”

Chairman of the MCLN Working Faith Board, Jim Collet (pictured below), is thrilled about this new ministry.

“Developing more servant leaders in our community is incredibly important, and I believe this program supports that objective,” he said. “It will provide a framework for members of the church to make their faith a more important component of their professional life.”

Mr. Collet joined HPUMC because of its inclusive nature and how it supports all members of the congregation, including his son, who has special needs. He sees the Working Faith program as another extension of the church’s effort to reach out to its members with valuable “real world” support for their daily journey.

Also, Mr. Collet recognizes the value in making leadership abilities more of a priority. “These skills are often not specifically taught in academic institutions to any significant degree,” he said. “It’s discussed all the time, but rarely ever focused on with practical application and support.”

“If we can guide and mentor the next generation of leaders and give them real-world skills on how to be better servant leaders in the future, they will truly make a difference for the people they work with and the community at large”

Early in his career, Mr. Collet admits that he wouldn’t have spent as much time thinking about how his faith and leadership style work together.

“Now,” he says, “I understand that looking at specific business situations, especially those involving people, are best viewed through a Christian lens.

“You generally make better decisions, even hard ones, if you better understand the perspective of the people you lead.”

Working Faith is certainly a people-focused program, with one of its goals being to grow this network of servant leaders over time. Mr. Collet wants to “create a program that is self-sustaining in that we have a number of people committed to becoming better Christian leaders who can then teach and mentor more leaders in the future.”