Dear St. Paul’s Family –
When I was appointed as the Stewardship Chairperson, I had to look the word up in the dictionary. Don’t laugh--I figured Stewardship was synonymous with pledging. Oh well, live and learn. Stewardship is actually defined as the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care. All that we have has been entrusted to us by God. The pledge drive concerns primarily the money that comes to the church to be managed by the Bishop’s Committee and recorded and disbursed by the Treasurer.
It is time for our annual drive to collect pledges for 2008. Yes, I realize it is earlier than usual, but we must have our potential numbers submitted to the diocese by the beginning of August.
I don’t do well in asking anyone for anything – trust me. You can ask my husband, who complains every year about a list for birthday gifts and Christmas gifts. I tell him if I need a new iron or vacuum, but beyond that he’s normally on his own. Seems strange that I would be the one asking for each and every one of you to complete and return your pledge cards. But, this isn’t for me – not directly. It is for you, for me, for all of us at St. Paul’s, in the Diocese of Los Angeles and the larger world.
Pledges are needed to help your Bishop’s Committee determine what we will have available for the upcoming year. The pledges are used to plan for improvements to the church, improvements to the Vicarage, potential programs for the congregation, and our overall outreach and ministry.
We’ve made so many improvements over the years, and no, we haven’t had 100% pledging. It would be nice to achieve 100% - it would mean that each and every one of you sat down and looked at your overall budget and agreed to set aside a percentage of your income.. This isn’t a contest. You can think of it as your pledge to God to keep his house of worship alive and growing. If you can afford $1.00 per month, whatever percentage of your income that represents, then pledge that. It will be $12.00 more that we can use to plan. The more who pledge, the more plans we can make to continue watching St. Paul’s blossom. After all of the expenses are covered, we can use the remainder for the extras we’d like to see.
This year we have had the blessing of giving Lili a Secretary and St. Paul’s a music director (even though we share the choir). These are little things that have a huge impact on St. Paul’s. We have our garden and patio, the Vicarage is slowly getting back to a livable condition. We have repaved our small parking lot and have hopes of repaving the parking lot across from the church. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to afford air conditioning in the church on those hot, muggy days in July and August? All of these things are possible if we have the opportunity to plan.
Please complete your pledge card and mail it back to the church or place it in the collection plate before the end of July.
Thank you!
Cindy Malloy
Stewardship Chairperson
Click HERE for pledge form. (The form will open in a new window.) Print it, fill it out, and return it to the church. Or you may copy the form into your favorite word processor to fill it out on your computer.