Stewardship curriculum now on diocesan website

Friday, Jul. 29, 2016

SALT LAKE CITY  — Stewardship curriculum designed for students in grades K-8th is available in English and Spanish on the Diocese of Salt Lake City website.

“The Archbishop of Santa Fe, our beloved previous bishop, John C. Wester, felt strongly that stewardship was not an option, but a necessity,” said Caroline Costello, who previously was chairperson of the diocesan Stewardship Council’s Youth Subcommittee.

Each of the nine lesson plans lasts 10 to 15 minutes. Every lesson includes an opening prayer, a teaching point, an activity and a closing prayer.

The curriculum was designed as part of a continuing effort for the faith and to eradicate the belief that stewardship is just money-related.

“Most people, when they hear stewardship, their first thought is, ‘How much money do I have to give you?’ Stewardship comes in many ways,” Costello said. “It is teaching and sharing love, the sharing of life, the sharing of food. It is just sharing everything that we have, and we wanted to implement this idea of stewardship from a young age.”

According to the curriculum, “A steward is a person who accepts the gifts that God has given him, helps them to grow and shares them with others.” 

Because most people tend to take that definition for granted, they tend to forget that giving is not just handing over money to the Church, Costello added.

“Giving of ourselves without holding back and sharing our faith and sharing everything about it that we have and who we are is really important now because we are in an ‘I’  generation. Everything is geared to being so self-involved and what I do, this is what I have.  Everything is I, I, I, and I,” said Costello.

She added that today’s world is very judgmental, and people also tend to follow others just to be accepted.

“To me the main family that we’ve got is our family core – the family that we were born in to, but the other family is our faith family, and as long as we are strong in our faith and we know who we are, where we are, and what we are about. … We are supposed to share, we are supposed to be loving, we are supposed to be forgiving, we are supposed to see Jesus in everyone around us, and all of that is grounded in stewardship,” said Costello.

The curriculum is based on the three Ts: talent, treasures and time. It is available for everyone. 

The documents are available for print  in English and Spanish. “Hopefully it’ll be multilingual with the time, as our abilities permit,” said Costello.

To access the stewardship curriculum, visit http://www.dioslc.org/stewardship/stewardship-curriculums.