Survey identifies good stewardship practices for parishes
Members of St. Mary Parish in Lanesville surround their now-retired pastor, Father Harold Ripperger, after a May 17, 2008, Mass at the parish church that celebrated the 50th anniversary of his priestly ordination. Chuck and Leslie Lynch, members of St. Mary Parish, credit their former pastor with building up a strong culture of stewardship in the New Albany Deanery faith community. (Submitted photo)
By Sean Gallagher
“Once one chooses to become a disciple of Jesus Christ, stewardship is not an option.”
With these words, Bishop John J. McRaith, the now-retired bishop of Owensboro, Ky., summarized the 1991 pastoral letter on stewardship issued by the bishops of the United States titled “Stewardship: A Disciple’s Response.”
Bishop McRaith was saying that stewardship should be an integral part of the life of faith.
In 2008, staff members in the archdiocesan Office of Stewardship and Development began studying how this spiritual perspective on stewardship has been successfully nurtured in parishes across central and southern Indiana.
Surveys were sent out in late 2008 to leaders in all of the archdiocese’s 151 parishes to gather data about how they encourage stewardship as a way of life by means that include hospitality, communication, use of the annual archdiocesan stewardship appeal, leadership development, spirituality and parish outreach.
Nearly 100 parishes completed the survey. The information collected in the survey was analyzed in early 2009, and later discussed with archdiocesan priests and other parish stewardship leaders.
Earlier this year, parishes received the results for their parish and deanery, and a chart to help them see how those results compared with the rest of the archdiocese.
Communication is key
The survey showed that St. Ann Parish in Terre Haute, led by parish life coordinator Providence Sister Connie Kramer, has a strong reputation for good communication between parish staff members and the parishioners.
A key part of that communication, according to Sister Connie, is a regular thanking of parishioners in the parish bulletin for their volunteer efforts.
The section of the bulletin where these thanks are expressed is titled “Gratitude is the memory of the heart.”
“It’s at the very top of the bulletin on the first page,” Sister Connie said. “And it says ‘Thanks to’ and if you painted something, if you helped me with the dental clinic, if you decorated the social hall, if you sang at a funeral, if you did anything, we say thank you there.”
There are a lot of people at St. Ann Parish to thank, Sister Connie said, because she is not afraid to ask people for help. And, more often than not, they are willing to lend a hand.
“I always say to people that I want to give the God who lives in you an option,” she said. “And if the God who lives in you says that this is something you need to do, then that’s what you need to do. And if it’s not something that you need to do, that’s fine.
“It’s just a question. It’s never a command performance.”
Mine the data
A parish may have a lot of members who want to be of service, like at St. Ann Parish, but if parish leaders don’t know who these people are or call upon them, then that service won’t happen or the ministry of the parish won’t live up to its potential.
Chuck and Leslie Lynch, members of St. Mary Parish in Lanesville, try to maximize the ministry of their New Albany Deanery faith community by taking full advantage of the data collected in Christ Our Hope: Compassion in Community, the annual archdiocesan stewardship appeal.
On the back of the pledge card that all parishioners receive is a list of various ministries that people can put check marks on to show their interest in volunteering.
Before the cards are printed, however, Chuck and Leslie make sure that the list of ministries on the card is customized to match the actual ministries of the parish.
“Make this reflect what your parish really does,” Chuck advises other parishes.
When the pledge cards start coming in, the couple record the checkmarks and send a list of names and contact information, with new volunteers especially marked, to a contact person for each parish ministry.
“Once we get each ministry separated out, we have to send that list to the contact person,” Chuck said. “And the big thing here is for them to call the new people and say, ‘Thank you’ and ‘Welcome to the ministry.’ ”
Seeing the names on those lists, especially the ones with an “N” marked by them since they are new volunteers, is satisfying for Chuck.
“It confirms for me how strong this parish is,” he said. “It confirms for me that we are each other’s strength. We grow in our faith by working in the vineyard, but next to a whole lot of other people who are there working also.
“Everything becomes easier if we all do it.”
A strong, welcoming leader
Chuck Lynch gave a lot of credit for the strength of St. Mary Parish in Lanesville to Father Harold Ripperger, who was the pastor from 1989 until he retired in 2009.
He described his longtime pastor as “unbelievably inviting.”
“You felt at home in his presence, immediately,” Chuck said.
Father James Wilmoth, the pastor of St. Roch Parish in Indianapolis, also tries to be a welcoming leader of his faith community.
He tries to do this especially at Mass and encourages other ministers during liturgies to do the same.
This message of hospitality that Father Wilmoth has lived and preached since becoming St. Roch’s pastor in 1997 is taking root in his parishioners.
“[Our ushers] just do it,” he said. “They stay in the back of the church and as people come in, they’ll say, ‘Good morning. Thanks for coming today.’ ”
Such cheerful greetings may have been one cause for the growth of St. Roch over the past dozen years. When Father Wilmoth arrived there, about 400 households were members of the parish. Now there are more than 1,000.
But Father Wilmoth doesn’t take credit for such growth. He points to the parishioners who have embraced their parish and the call to be welcoming.
“It’s their place,” he said. “It’s their place of worship. It’s a big part of their family. It’s a big part of their neighborhood. And I think that they’ve just taken to that, and they’ve just tried to make it the best it can be in every aspect.”
Building on a strong foundation
The various practices that the survey pointed out that help build a culture of stewardship in a parish—such as good communications, mining the data collected in the annual stewardship appeal and being a welcoming parish—will only grow in effectiveness the more they are built on a strong foundation of faith.
This is the opinion of Father Michael Fritsch, the pastor of St. John the Apostle Parish in Bloomington.
For him, it starts with placing a high value on Sunday Mass.
“To me, that’s part of stewardship,” Father Fritsch said. “It teaches the youth that the celebration of the Mass is number one. And if you’ve got that as the foundation, then all of the other stewardship activities will flow.”
In his homilies, Father Fritsch regularly invites his listeners to prayerfully consider how they can grow in their love of Christ by giving of themselves more to others.
Highlighting the spiritual nature of stewardship has had an effect on Timothy Mercer, a member of St. John the Apostle Parish.
When Father Fritsch asked Mercer to be the lead catechist in the parish’s confirmation preparation program, Mercer jumped at the chance.
“I had been asking God for some time to open a door for me where I could serve better,” Mercer said. “And when [Father Fritsch] made the call, I was very grateful that he would think of me. I had previously not said anything to him, only to God in my prayers.”
Mercer said his pastor’s homilies prompted him to give of himself. He particularly recalled a homily that Father Fritsch shared about the parable of the talents that three servants of a man were given to invest (Mt 25:14-28).
Two servants invested the talents wisely and gave back their talents with increase to their master, who rewarded them. The third servant buried the one talent that he was given, and was rebuked by the master.
“He put a slant on it and it made me realize that I was the man that still had the one talent and that I had not invested it wisely for the Lord,” Mercer said. “I better get off my rear end and make it happen.”
For Mercer, such stewardship is also linked directly to the Eucharist.
“Father Mike makes a great emphasis on the Real Presence, unlike anything that I’d been exposed to,” he said. “He has definitely taken our parish to a new level, I feel.” †
