Imbuing the leaders of any parish with the mindset of the spirituality of stewardship is no easy thing. This is especially true because, most of the time, we haven’t conducted any formal stewardship formation with the parish staff, the pastoral council, the finance council, the ministry leaders, and other leadership groups. Even with experienced stewardship parishes, the formation of parish leaders usually fizzles and dies soon after it’s started, if it was even done at all.
However, forming leaders in the spirituality of stewardship is one of the most important things you can do if you want to successfully develop stewardship in your parish for the long term.
The tool I’m offering is a free video of a presentation by Fr. John Lanzrath, the current Chancellor and Director of Stewardship of the Diocese of Wichita, Kansas. This presentation was recorded at one of our recent Msgr. McGread Stewardship Conferences, and the title of Fr. Lanzreth’s talk is “The Pillars of Parish Stewardship.” These “Pillars” are Hospitality, Prayer, Formation, and Service, and are vital to the success of any stewardship parish.
The presentation is an hour long and is intended to foster serious reflection on the material presented. It’s not intended to be a sample taste of stewardship, so if you’re looking for something quick, cute, and generic, then this is not for you.
If you request a copy and utilize it with your parish leadership groups, it will help to further ingrain the true principles of stewardship spirituality into your parish leaders, both for their personal lives, and for the life of your parish.
Just send an email with your request to me at eric@catholicsteward.com, and I’ll be happy to have one shipped to you.
I would also encourage you to download the document that is the basis for this presentation. Just click on this link to a PDF version of The Pillars of Parish Stewardship and then e-mail it to all of your key leaders (the groups I listed before and others) for them to read it on their own. You’ll also find this document may be of assistance in helping to foster an ongoing dialog with the leaders of your parish.
