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Our Lady & St
Joseph's Warwick Square, Carlisle, CA1 1LB |
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STEWARDSHIP - Why Stewardship?
God is the giver of all, the true owner of all that we have and are. Jesus is God’s greatest gift to us. He is the one who reveals to us who we really are and who God is. His life is all gift. This gift inspires a response. Stewardship is our response to all God’s gifts and in particular to Jesus. It is He who gives us our mission as church. That mission, as it was for Jesus as priest, prophet and servant is three-fold:
In other words:
Our parishes are the communities called to this mission. All are gifted in these communities and for mission to be fruitful all the gifts need to be called out and made active. Together we make up the Body of Christ. We trust in the Holy Spirit but we also recognise the need for human organisation to make this mission more powerful. For this we need parish structures that enable, encourage, educate and seek to renew. We see this as the shared responsibility of priest and parishioners. For example, within the early weeks of the process of taking stewardship to a parish, a very powerful symbol of shared responsibility is to see lay people speaking at Mass and sharing their faith with their community. There is much talk of decline in numbers as if our main role was to make churches fuller. Instead, we are called to be the salt and leaven in society. The motivation for this process is always the belief that the world needs the Gospel and we are called to make it known in the most effective way for our time and place.
Four Characteristics of a Christian Steward
Seven Characteristics of a Stewardship Parish
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