Incomplete View of Stewardship
Often when someone hears the word stewardship, they automatically think of money. This is understandable because around the country, offices and businesses dedicated to fundraising often have stewardship in their titles. Sometimes stewardship looks like “a fancy way to get people to donate more money to the Church.” But the reality is to reduce stewardship just to money is a very impoverished way to look at Christian Stewardship. Stewardship is about our money, but it is about so much more than just our money.secretary@stritainthedesert.org
Let us step back a little and look at the word “steward.” A steward is someone who cares for something that is not his own.
In Luke chapter 16, Jesus tells the parable of the “dishonest Steward” – A rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his property. He summoned him and said, ‘What is this I hear about you? Prepare a full account of your stewardship because you can no longer be my steward.’ (cf. Luke 16:1-2). What was this man’s job? It was to manage the property and affairs of the rich man.
FULLER VIEW OF STEWARDSHIP
Stewardship is often referred to as being time, gift, and talent. What does that mean?
Time
Stewardship of time is simply practicing your Catholic faith by attending Mass, participating in church related activities, study of scripture, and evangelizing by the way you live your Catholic faith.
Gift
Stewardship of your gift is supporting your parish by your weekly envelop donation at Mass. Or it could be setting up a recurring donation on-line at a rate you feel comfortable with. You are encouraged to sign up with on-line giving as this takes the worry about making your donation or in the case you did not bring any money to church with you on Sunday. Something that is happening more as we move to a cashless society.
There are other on-line donations that you can also support such as the New Church Building Fund and Maintenance Fund to name only two. These are dedicated accounts that add to your weekly donation by supporting specific areas of support. This means you are directly contributing to those accounts that are not covered by your weekly donation.
Regular Giving
- Family Envelopes allows you to make contributions by cash or check and include in the regular collections during mass.
- On-Line Giving allows you to make contributions without writing checks or worrying about cash donations. Registering for on-line giving with Faith Direct allows us to reduce administrative costs and be more environmentally friendly while affording our parishioners the ease and security of on-line giving.
On-Line Giving - https://www.osvhub.com/stritainthedesert/giving/funds
If you would like to continue using the envelop method, then you do not need to do anything. If you would like to use an envelope for giving or do not have envelopes, please contact
secretary@stritainthedesert.org.
Talent
What does talent and stewardship mean. This is giving of your God given talent by volunteering for a ministry in the church such as Lector, Eucharistic Minister, St. Vincent de Paul, Knights of Columbus, and many other ministries. If this is something you might consider, please go to our ministry page for more information on how you can be a good Steward with your talent.