Stewardship Day draws large crowd to St. Paul the Apostle

"Stewardship is inherent in us as human beings," Bishop Michael Mulvey said to a packed parish hall at St. Paul the Apostle on Thursday, Aug. 14. "It is in us but needs to be drawn out."

The occasion for the bishop's talk was a "Stewardship Day" hosted by the diocese's Office of Parish Stewardship Development. In attendance were priests, pastors, and religious as well as parish administrators, bookkeepers and secretaries. Also present were officers of parish pastoral and finance councils.

Among the topics covered by the day-long meeting were Spirituality of Stewardship; How to Build Up Ministries; Best Practices for Web sites; Creating an Action Plan; How to use Social Media in Ministry; Teaching Parishioners Through Stewardship; Building Community; Increasing Offertory; and Acknowledging Parishioners.

"Each of us has an interior'spiritual" life and an external life," Bishop Mulvey said. "The internal must express itself in the external and the external must reflect the internal. Giving is external expression of internal."

The bishop reminded participants "Jesus Christ was the ultimate steward. He gave his life for us."