Ministry fairs, lay presentations give a new perspective on stewardship

Photo caption: Members of St. Michael Parish in Bradford learn about the faith community’s ministries during a ministry fair held earlier this year. (Submitted photo)

By Sean Gallagher

This fall, 94 parishes across central and southern Indiana will start their participation in the annual archdiocesan Called to Serve: Parish Stewardship and United Catholic Appeal.

The remaining parishes not participating in the Called to Serve appeal have either just completed their involvement in the Legacy for Our Mission: For Our Children and the Future campaign or are in the midst of doing so.

During this time, members of the parishes involved in the Called to Serve appeal will explore the many ways that they can become better stewards of the gifts that God has blessed them with.

Many parishes help their members consider new paths of stewardship by hosting ministry fairs.

Ordinarily held on weekends when people come for Saturday evening or Sunday Mass, a ministry fair features booths manned by people involved in the broad spectrum of ministries found in parishes.

Members of these faith communities can learn about these ministries and consider how their own gifts and talents might help these programs grow. They might also discern an unmet need in the parish and decide that they have the gifts to help meet it.

St. Margaret Mary Parish in Terre Haute will have its ministry fair this weekend. According to the parish’s pastoral associate, Jerome Moorman, approximately 30 ministries—from liturgical ministries to programs that seek to meet the spiritual needs of the homebound to hospitality ministries—will have booths.

The ministry fair’s manager, St. Margaret Mary parishioner Kim Knobloch, is proud of the broad variety of ministries that will be represented and hopes that it will spur other parishioners to action.

“I think that by seeing other people who are already involved in these ministries, they will be more interested in becoming involved in them themselves,” Knobloch said.

The ministry fair at St. Margaret Mary Parish comes at a time when its members will be invited to consider their monetary participation in the Called to Serve appeal.

Moorman thinks that the timing of the ministry fair will help parishioners see stewardship from a broad perspective.

“It’s all a part of total stewardship. Usually when you think of stewardship, people think of treasure right away,” Moorman said. “The ministry fair hopefully will get people looking at overall stewardship, not just coming to Mass and sitting in the pew and throwing your envelope in.”

This money-only perspective was the attitude that Paul Heerdink had about supporting his parish, St. John the Apostle Parish in Bloomington, for more than a year after he became a member.

“[But] after sitting in the pew for a year and a half, it was kind of like the Lord was tugging on me to do something to help,” Heerdink recently said in an interview with The Criterion.

After doing some spiritual reading, Heerdink called his pastor, Father Michael Fritsch, and asked him if he had a volunteer position “that nobody else wanted to do.”

The two discussed Heerdink’s particular gifts and talents, and eventually concluded that he could help his fellow parishioners come to a broad understanding of stewardship involving time, talent and treasure.

He will be speaking about this topic after Communion at Masses on Oct. 28 and 29.

Like St. Margaret Mary Parish, St. John the Apostle Parish is hosting its ministry fair after each Mass this weekend.

Other members of the parish were planning to give similar presentations during Masses on the three weekends before Heerdink delivers his talk.

Heerdink thinks it’s important for parishioners to hear about the importance of stewardship from people like themselves.

“We hope that they’ll hear an ordinary story … [from] just another parish member and what they’ve been through and, in hearing that story, they’ll be able to relate to that,” Heerdink said.

“The greatest hope is that we’ll have more people participating,” he said, “bringing their gifts that the Lord has blessed them with and to share with all of us.”

Since the time that Heerdink felt “the Lord … tugging” on him to become more active, he’s been given a broad perspective on the needs of the Church and how everyone can contribute.

“No one person can do it all,” he said. “We’re all members of the Body of Christ, and each one of us should bring [forward] our talents. If not, there’s something missing. That part will be missing.

“No matter how large or small that [talent] is, it’s very necessary for the total body.” †