Good Steward Newsletter – June 2008

Pastoral Planning Seen Through the Lens of Stewardship

This talk was presented by Dan Conway to clergy and lay leaders of the Diocese of Orange (Calif.). It was featured in the Catholic News Service publication Origins.

Thank you for the invitation to return to Orange County and to share with you some reflections on this interesting topic: pastoral planning as seen through the lens of stewardship.

As you know, a lens is a curved piece of glass, or something like glass, that can bring closer together or send farther apart the rays of light passing through it. So, for example, when we look through the lens of a telescope or a microscope, objects that are either very far away, or so small that they invisible to the naked eye, appear larger and nearer. The result is clarity, a better perception and understanding of the object under investigation.

Pope Benedict XVI began his first official visit to the United States with a heartfelt benediction: God bless America! He continued to bless us throughout his six-day visit with words of gratitude, affirmation, encouragement, appreciation and hope. As Cardinal Francis George noted in his welcoming remarks at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., on April 16, Americans are “people who take joy in being generous and, in that characteristic, imitate the Lord himself and make God’s image strong in our society.”

Our object under investigation today is pastoral planning. And the lens that we hope will bring us a better understanding of it is stewardship. What is pastoral planning? And how can the concept of stewardship, which we have to admit is not the most familiar or readily understood term in our Catholic vocabulary, serve as a lens that helps to bring pastoral planning into a clearer focus for us?

To plan is to think through ahead of time a course of action. To get from here to Alaska, you need a plan. To build a new church, you need a plan. To minister effectively to an increasingly multicultural community, you need a plan.

To plan in a pastoral way, is to think through ahead of time how we are called to carry out the mission of the Church, the ministry of Jesus Christ, in this time and circumstance, with this group of people, acknowledging our strengths and weaknesses as a community of faith, and naming the challenges and opportunities we face as we respond to the Gospel call to discipleship, evangelization and stewardship.

What is pastoral planning?

To better understand the specific challenges and opportunities of pastoral planning, we should look to the apostolic exhortation of Pope John Paul II, Nuovo Millennio Inuente. The late Holy Father saw the dawning of the new millennium as a welcome opportunity to revitalize our pastoral activity. His words are a powerful witness to what authentic pastoral planning is (or should be). He says:

We are certainly not seduced by the naive expectation that, faced with the great challenges of our time, we shall find some magic formula. No, we shall not be saved by a formula but by a Person, and the assurance which he gives us: I am with you!

It is not therefore a matter of inventing a “new program”. The program already exists: it is the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition, it is the same as ever. Ultimately, it has its center in Christ himself, who is to be known, loved and imitated, so that in him we may live the life of the Trinity, and with him transform history until its fulfillment in the heavenly Jerusalem. This is a program which does not change with shifts of times and cultures, even though it takes account of time and culture for the sake of true dialogue and effective communication. This program for all times is our program for the Third Millennium. But it must be translated into pastoral initiatives adapted to the circumstances of each community.

What awaits us therefore is an exciting work of pastoral revitalization — a work involving all of us.
(Pope John Paul II, Novo Millennio Inuente #29)

The “program” or “plan” found in the Gospel, and in the living Tradition of the Church, is the same yesterday, today and forever, the pope says. But it must be translated into pastoral initiatives adapted to the circumstances of each community.

This is the exciting work of pastoral revitalization—taking what is timeless and unchanging and applying it to the new and different circumstances of each time and place and culture. Pastoral planning does NOT mean inventing a new program. But it does require taking the program already present in the Gospel, and in Catholic Tradition, and applying it (using “true dialogue” and “effective communication”) by means of pastoral initiatives that respond to the opportunities and challenges of today.

At the heart or center of pastoral planning is the Person of Jesus Christ. Our most fundamental task, the pope says, is to introduce him to the people of our day—in our diocese, our parishes, our neighborhoods and our families. This means thinking through ahead of time what our mission is as the Church of Christ here in Orange County, and how we plan to present Him (who is to be known, loved and imitated) to our contemporary world so that in Him our world may be transformed until its fulfillment at the end of human history.

Authentic pastoral planning begins with a series of questions: What is our vision as a community of faith? What is our mission—who are we called to be and become as disciples of Jesus Christ? What are our long-term goals? Where are we headed as a pilgrim people and what are our priorities for getting there?

Vision is found in the Scriptures and in the teaching of the Church as this has been handed down to us from the apostles. Translating this vision into terms that are accessible for people today is the work of the pope and the bishops and you pastors and each of us who have received the baptismal call to be disciples of Jesus Christ and to carry on His work in the world. We should not take “the vision thing” for granted. As Scripture says, without vision, the people perish. Unless we can speak the words that people of today long to hear, they will look elsewhere—to the false prophets of our modern culture who invariably fail to deliver on their promises—whether spiritual or material.

According to the Second Vatican Council’s document, Lumen Gentium, the mission of the Church is to proclaim and establish among all peoples the Kingdom of Christ and of God. Furthermore, the Church is on earth the seed and beginning of that kingdom. The Church is what she proclaims—the Body of Christ and the fulfillment of God’s promise to save us from our sins. (See the Catechism of the Catholic Church #767-769) We who are baptized are called to be missionaries for Christ—the people who proclaim the coming Kingdom, and who prepare for it and help to establish it, by being the seeds and the beginning of that Kingdom here and now.

If our mission is to proclaim and establish among all peoples the Kingdom of God, what is our plan for accomplishing this mission? Clearly, as Pope John Paul II tells us, the plan is found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition of the Church. But how do we apply this plan to the people and circumstances of today? This is the challenge, and the opportunity, of pastoral planning.

In his apostolic exhortation, Nuovo Millennio Inuente, the late Holy Father offers some important ideas on how to apply the timeless Gospel message to the new situations we face today. These are, in effect, long-term goals or pastoral priorities which are suggested by the pope as necessary for carrying out the Church’s timeless mission today. None of these are “new.” They are as old as Christianity itself. But they have a new urgency in the contemporary circumstances of the new millennium. Let me paraphrase these “pastoral priorities” recommended by Pope John Paul II:

1. The universal call to holiness. The pope calls our attention to the Council’s focus on the universal call to holiness as a way of bringing a renewed sense of authenticity and vigor to Christian life. He says that “it would be a contradiction to settle for a life of mediocrity, marked by a minimalist ethic and a shallow religiosity.” To effectively carry out our mission as disciples of Jesus Christ, we dare not appear shallow or superficial. We must be holy.
2. Prayer as a response to the widespread hunger for spirituality. Is it not one of the “signs of the times” (the pope says) that in today’s world, despite widespread secularization, there is a widespread demand for spirituality, a demand which expresses itself in large part as a renewed need for prayer? We who have received the grace of believing in Christ have a duty to teach others how to find intimacy and union with God through prayer. Pope Benedict carries this a step further saying that our parishes must be “schools of prayer” for the people of our day.
3. The Eucharist as the source of unity and communion. The Sunday Eucharist which every week gathers Christians together as God’s family round the table of the Word and the Bread of Life, is the privileged place where communion is ceaselessly proclaimed and nurtured. Precisely through sharing in the Eucharist, the Lord’s Day also becomes the Day of the Church, when she can effectively exercise her role as the sacrament of unity. This is our best defense against dissolution and division, the pope says. If we gather around the table of the Lord, we will be one in Him.
4. The Sacrament of Reconciliation as a response to the “sense of sin” (or lack of it) in today’s culture. The late pope is insistent in calling for a rediscovery of Christ as mysterium pietatis, the one in whom God shows us his compassionate heart and reconciles us fully with himself. It is this face of Christ that must be rediscovered through the Sacrament of Penance, which the Holy Father says is “the ordinary way of obtaining forgiveness and the remission of serious sins committed after Baptism.”
5. The primacy of grace and the assurance that with God all things are possible. There is a temptation which perennially besets every spiritual journey and pastoral work: that of thinking that the results depend on our ability to act and to plan. God of course asks us really to cooperate with his grace, and therefore invites us to invest all our resources of intelligence and energy in serving the cause of the Kingdom. But it is fatal to forget that “without Christ we can do nothing.”
6. Proclaiming the Gospel (evangelization/participation in the Church’s mission) as the responsibility of all. Today we must courageously face a situation which is becoming increasingly diversified and demanding, in the context of “globalization” and of the consequent new and uncertain mingling of peoples and cultures. We must revive in ourselves the burning conviction of Paul, who cried out: “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel” (1 Cor 9:16). This passion will not fail to stir in the Church a new sense of mission, which cannot be left to a group of “specialists” but must involve the responsibility of all the members of the People of God.

These may seem like strange pastoral priorities: Calling baptized Christians to holiness, teaching people to pray, making Eucharist the center of our lives as individuals and as a community of faith, embracing reconciliation and the peace of Christ, trusting in the grace of God and participating in the work of evangelization. These are not new priorities for the Church Universal, or for the Church in Orange County, or for your parish or mine. And they are not (in themselves) new programs or action plans with measurable outcomes or structures for accountability.

These are long-term goals that require new pastoral initiatives. As Pope John Paul II put it, they require us to “start afresh from Christ” and to put out into the deep (Duc in altum!) in order to cast off our tired and weary ways of doing things and to begin again empowered by the grace of Christ.

As Pope Benedict XVI has reminded us, the Church is not effective in her ministry because of our plans or our programs. The Church succeeds in her ministry only because Christ has gifted us with the Holy Spirit and with the power of His grace. Our work, as disciples of Jesus Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God, is to discern God’s will for his Church in this time and place and culture. Then we are called to take God’s abundant gifts and graces, which we have received from all those who have gone before us through the Scriptures and the living Tradition of the Church, and share them generously with others (the people of our day) in order to bring together all nations and peoples into the one Kingdom of God.

This is the work of pastoral planning, but it is also good stewardship: Taking care of, and sharing, all the gifts we have received from a good and gracious God for the sake of the Gospel. In the end, successful pastoral planning has three purposes:

• To set direction for the future and to answer the questions “Where are we going and how will we get there?”
• To establish priorities (those things which are either essential or urgent in carrying our the Church’s mission in the circumstances of today) and guide ministries at the parish and diocesan levels
• To exercise responsible stewardship of the Church’s human, physical, and financial resources (her spiritual and temporal gifts

Good planning is good stewardship, and vice versa. Since we are not inventing a new program, but begin always with the received wisdom and tradition of the Church, the process of pastoral planning is a stewardship activity—discerning the gifts we have received from God, nurturing and developing them through the power of God’s grace, and sharing them generously with others in response to the challenges and opportunities of our time.

Who is a Christian steward?

The U.S., bishops’ 1992 pastoral letter, Stewardship: A Disciple’s Response does not contain a definition of stewardship. Instead, the bishops ask themselves (and us) the question: Who is a Christian steward? And they answer this question by saying; “A Christian steward is one who receives God’s gifts gratefully, cherishes and tends them in a responsible and accountable manner, shares them generously with others out of justice and love, and returns them to the Lord with increase. These are the four characteristics of Christian stewardship: gratitude, accountability, generosity and the willingness to give back with increase. I believe that these four characteristics are the lens through which effective Christian living must be examined today. I also believe that this is an appropriate lens to use when we want to perceive more clearly the objective results of our pastoral planning initiatives.

Measuring Our Success

How do we chart our progress or measure our growth—as individuals or as stewards of our parish and diocese? How can we tell that our pastoral initiatives are making a difference?

To measure our success using the “lens of stewardship,” we must ask ourselves:

Are we more grateful (as individuals, families or communities)? Have we matured in our celebration of the Eucharist? Do we thank God daily for all his gifts? Do we pray more often? Do we say “thank you” more often—to God and to the people with whom we live and work? Do we complain less? Criticize less? Covet others’ possessions less? Are we more grateful for who we are and what we have than we used to be?

Are we more accountable today? Do we admit our mistakes and try to learn from them? Do we celebrate the sacrament of reconciliation regularly? Have we accepted our baptismal responsibility for the evangelical mission of the Church? Do we reach out to others through hospitality and through solidarity with the poor and with all who are in need?

Are we more generous? Have we grown in our willingness to share our time? Our personal gifts and talents? Our financial resources? Can we honestly say that as individuals and communities we are warmer, more caring and more generous now? Are we giving what’s left over—or are we sharing our very best, giving sacrificially the “first fruits” of all that we have and all that we are?

Finally, have we taken the gifts and talents that God has given us and helped them to grow, or have we buried them out of ignorance, apathy or fear? Have we brought out the best in ourselves and our parish and diocesan communities using all our gifts to develop and grow the Church’s mission? Can we honestly say that we are growing in holiness? In prayerfulness? In our service to others? Do we gather at the altar to return God’s gifts with increase?

These are the only true measures of growth in stewardship – and the only genuinely effective benchmarks of what it means to be a “stewardship” family, parish or diocese: a community of faith that is on the road to stewardship as a way of life.

But aren’t these also the pastoral priorities proposed by Pope John Paul II: Holiness, prayer, Eucharist, reconciliation, grace and evangelization? Without using the term, the late Holy Father has recommended that we use stewardship (in its fullest and most substantive meaning) as the lens by which we apply the timeless truths of daily Christian living to the concrete circumstances of our contemporary world.

This requires that we understand stewardship as a great deal more than just “time, talent and treasure” or weekly church support or volunteer activities at the parish or diocese. To be an appropriate lens for understanding the effectiveness of pastoral planning, we must recognize stewardship as a way of life, a way of applying timeless Gospel values to the challenges and opportunities of today’s daily Christian living here in Orange County and throughout the global community that is ours in this new millennium.

During the past few years, the members of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have engaged in a process of reorganization designed to focus the activities of the Conference on priorities established by the bishops. These priorities which the American bishops have set for themselves (and for us) include:

• Implementation of the pastoral initiative on marriage
• Faith formation focused on sacramental practice
• Priestly and religious vocations
• Life and dignity of the human person
• Recognition of cultural diversity with special emphasis on Hispanic ministry in the spirit of Encuentro

Presumably, the bishops will be held accountable for both the success of these pastoral initiatives and for the process by which they reached these priorities (leaving aside other initiatives which might have been included given more time and more resources). Examined through the lens of stewardship, the bishops will need to ask themselves: Will these pastoral priorities lead the Church in the United States to a greater sense of gratitude, accountability, generosity and the willingness to give back with increase? Will these pastoral initiative help us to grow in holiness, to achieve spiritual fulfillment, to experience communion with Christ and with one another, to confess our sins and be reconciled, to cast off despair and trust in God’s grace, and to accept personal responsibility for the evangelical mission of the Church?

In the end, the only really important questions are: “Do our pastoral priorities bring us closer to the person of Jesus Christ?” And, “Do they help us be better stewards of the spiritual and temporal gifts we have received from a good and gracious God?”

Let’s pray that the Mother of our Lord, who is the only perfect steward, will inspire us with her example and intercede for us with her Son so that we can respond to the challenges of this time and place with hearts full of gratitude and generosity – today and every day of our stewardship journey!

Thank you.

Copyright © 2008, Daniel Conway Permission is given to copy and distribute this Good Steward Newsletter for use in religious or educational settings provided that proper attribution is given to the author. This publication may not be sold or distributed to the general public without the express permission of the author.