Frequently Asked Questions
For over 20 years, we have worked with nearly every type of parish – large parishes, small parishes, wealthy ones, those on a shoestring budget, bilingual and trilingual parishes, those familiar with the concept of stewardship, those for which it was a radically new concept – not to mention everything in between.
Despite these differences from parish to parish, it seems that pastors and lay leaders are curious about the same things. Because of this, we have put together a list of frequently asked questions that are likely to answer some of your own questions, too.
“Since working with CSC, I’ve seen a good number of people who have stepped forward to get engaged in ministries who have not done so in the past. I’ve also seen people who are already engaged becoming more engaged, or doing more things. I think there’s a good spirit of energy that has been brought to the parish as a whole.”
Fr. Don Blaeser, O.F.M., Pastor, St. Francis Solanus, Quincy, Ill.
Why can’t we do it on our own?
Many parishes attempt to facilitate stewardship on their own, but never seem to realize any significant or consistent level of success. Parishes we work with gain access to an entire team of professionals who understand what works when implementing stewardship at Catholic parishes – all for less than the cost of an office staff member.
How do we get started?
All that’s needed to get started is a desire to grow stewardship within your parish and the resolve to make available the appropriate resources to do so. A benefit of working with us is that we do the heavy lifting for each of the stewardship activities the parish facilitates throughout the year.
What services will Catholic Stewardship Consultants provide our parish?
We can work with your parish to build a services package that will work best for you, though most parishes take advantage of all our services, which includes a monthly newsletter, leadership retreat, survey, Stewardship Renewal, and Stewardship Committee development.
When should we expect to start seeing results?
Every parish we work with sees results within the first year.
I understand that stewardship is a spiritual process, but we also are very tight on our budget. How can I justify spending money to get stewardship efforts started?
There are no two ways around it – it takes money to implement stewardship in a parish, whether or not the parish chooses to work with us! Benefit from our years of experience in the field of stewardship, an entire staff dedicated to serving your community, cutting edge stewardship tools and techniques, and more. Parishes around the country waste thousands of dollars each year trying to do stewardship “on the cheap.” The returns of facilitating a high-quality stewardship process far exceed the expenses incurred.
