Best Practices in Parish Stewardship

I'm a member of the International Catholic Stewardship Council's (ICSC) committee for Parish Stewardship Education and Services. One of the purposes of the committee is to develop practical stewardship resources our member parishes can use in their efforts to teach this way of life. In 2007, the ICSC received a grant from Our Sunday Visitor Institute, the charitable arm of our not-for-profit organization. This grant provided funding for a survey to statistically prove what techniques and processes are best employed by parishes to teach stewardship. Dr. Charles Zech, Executive Director of the Villanova University Center for the Study of Church Management, was selected as the researcher and analyst for this project.

A subcommittee of the ICSC Parish Stewardship Education and Services group was asked to assist with the composition of survey questions, initial analysis of data, and to conduct focus groups in order to prove the survey results. That was really a fascinating project to be part of! The data was published in 2008 by Our Sunday Visitor, with Dr. Zech as the author, in a book called Best Practices in Parish Stewardship. It is a book I keep on top of my desk, and my copy contains quite a bit of underlining and my scribbles as well as sticky note flags throughout.

On November 2, 2011, Dr. Zech will present a 90-minute, interactive, webinar (part of a 12-webinar series to earn a Certificate in Church Management from Villanova), called Stewardship Best Practices at 2:00 pm Eastern, and again at 7:00 pm Eastern. Anyone can attend this webinar to learn more about these best practices and hear Dr. Zech's insights. There is a $99 registration fee per computer connection, so you can gather your entire stewardship committee to view it and even ask questions to Dr. Zech, all without leaving the parish office or incurring travel expenses! The link for more information on the webinar, including how to register, is: http://www.osvoffertory.com/CustomerResources/Calendar/tabid/230/ModuleID/821/ItemID/214/mctl/EventDetails/Default.aspx

If you haven't attended a webinar before, it's a great way to learn without traveling, and you participate over the internet from any computer at work or at home. Many companies now provide webinars, or use the web-presentation method for on-the-job training, organizational updates and so on.

I hope you'll join us on November 2! We'd love to have you "in class" with us. We'll, back to the vineyard. Why don't you go, too? Until next time...