Tuesday, January 17, 2012

The Importance of Personal Witness

Greetings!

Did you think I'd forgotten about you? Never. Just running behind my friends.

I did a workshop for a local parish on Saturday, and a topic that seemed to strike a cord with them was lay witnesses, and not just having them (parishes definitely should...read on), but when, where, and who should do the presentations.

In Best Practices in Parish Stewardship (Zech, Our Sunday Visitor, 2008), Dr. Charles Zech reports that parishes utilizing lay witnesses experience 11% more treasure, 9% more volunteer time, 11% more time spent on spiritual activities, and 17% more time spent in outreach than parishes who do not use lay witnesses! In fact, the biggest increases were experienced by parishes scheduling testimonials at times other than at Mass. (That doesn't mean you shouldn't do lay witness presentations at the appropriate times at Mass, it means you shouldn't ONLY do them at Mass.)

You might be thinking to yourself, "What other opportunities are there?" Certainly putting witness stories and quotes in the parish newsletter, annual report, or ministry booklets, video-taping those involved in ministries and uploading to the website, and/or showing before parish or school meetings. You might even think about having someone talk during the parish festival or picnic!

Many non-profit organizations are familiar with the success of lay witnesses and include such testimonials in their end-of-the-year appeals for financial gifts. People want their money to make a difference, and will give where they recognize lives are changed. Certainly lives are changed in our parishes!

The best stories are those of current disciples serving in parish ministries. You know them...they're the passionate, prayerful ones who other folks seem to respect and listen to. Don't overlook children or young adults as they can be effective and inspirational. Consider all ages and races of parishioners. Talks can be given on financial giving, serving, spirituality, and inviting among other topics. Be sure to have the witness share a bit of their struggle to prioritize their finances and/or time in order to make their sacrifices work, and how rewarding it is for them emotionally and spiritually.

Definitely preview the talks beforehand to ensure there isn't an underlying theme of "giving in order to receive more" as we all know God's rewards are not always financial! Below are some links to diocesan websites with resources for lay witness presentations including some in Spanish.

http://www.oc-foundation.org/page.aspx?pid=402 - Diocese of Orange

http://dioceseofcleveland.org/stewardship/stewardship_docs/stewardshipmanual/Sec3.0Manual.pdf - Diocese of Cleveland

http://oakdiocese.org/ministries/stewardship/best-practices/value-of-lay-witnesses - Diocese of Oakland

And pages 42-51 of the entire stewardship manual of the Diocese of Charlotte at http://www.charlottediocese.org/images/main/development/stewardshipmanual_2010.pdf

Please share with us some of your parish lay witness best practices by commenting on this post for all to see! I'd love to hear from you.

Back to the vineyard. Please, you go, too!

2 comments:

Greg Fata said...

We've started a Stewardship group and developed a policy in our Parish, in accordance to the Diocese guidelines. We've introduced it to the Parish via an announcement the pulpit and an insert in the bulletin. We also have a FACEBOOK and TWITTER site we've done the same.

Blessings, Julie said...

Hi Greg,
So in your group do you share witness stories? That's an interesting idea. I'd like to hear a little more about how that works. Could you either give me a call to discuss at 800-348-2886, ext. 2543, or email me at jkenny@osv.com? I'm especially interested at how you're using Facebook and Twitter. Thanks and have a great weekend! Julie