Stewardship & the Pastoral Plan

What is the connection between Stewardship and the Pastoral Plan?

Go Out and Bear Fruit, our Diocesan Pastoral Plan was launched in July 2005.  Stewardship was recognised as an important element in planning in the diocese, and five parishes agreed to pilot a stewardship process.  Since the launch of Go Out and Bear Fruit, it has become clear that stewardship is an important way of implementing all aspects of the Pastoral Plan.  Bishop Crispian recognises that the principles of stewardship are central to the life of discipleship:
 

As we seek to implement the Pastoral Plan in response to the call we all receive from Christ to ‘go out and bear fruit’, we need to respond as His true disciples.  I am convinced that Christian stewardship will enable us to do that. … The commitment that Portsmouth will become a ‘stewardship diocese’, that is, one where the principles of Christian stewardship will have an important place in our lives, is an important step for us all.  … As Pastoral Areas develop and we begin to work together, what better way than to look at these changes in the diocese through the eyes of a good steward. 

Let’s ask ourselves questions such as

• What do we have in our Pastoral Area to give special thanks for? 
• What are the talents and gifts of everyone in our worshipping communities? 
• Do we recognise and value these gifts?  Do we need to spend time and discover them, together with the talents, which God has given to each of us?

… Through the eyes of a good steward, everything we do, no matter how humdrum we may find it, can be a means to give praise to God (from Portsmouth People, Feb 2007).