Stewardship
The year 2004 marked a radical change for All Saints’ with respect to the stewardship
commission. The Vestry helped form a group that is completely different from previous
years – here’s how:
- The group is a multiple year commitment (similar to the vestry), with a few members
rotating off each year and new members joining.
- Our group’s responsibility is to educate the parish about a much broader meaning
of “stewardship” than just the pledge drive. Stewardship is not just the pledge
drive, it’s so much more than that. Stewardship includes understanding the
many gifts we’re each given, making the best use of those gifts, and yes, helping
support the many programs that we believe in at All Saints’ and in the communities
around us.
- We will focus significant energy on parish newcomers, since these are typically
people unfamiliar with the programs available in our parish, as well as the way
our parish functions. We will attempt to find ways of helping newcomers understand
the many ministries within All Saints’, as well as how to get involved.
This year, we started the year-around process for stewardship, with several goals:
- Help people understand that the many ministries of All Saints’ impact us directly
as parishioners.
- Educate parishioners about the broader meaning of “stewardship”
- Help newcomers understand more about how our parish functions, and that their
financial support in the form of pledges directly impacts the services we provide
to the parish.
- Draw newcomers into the life of the parish (to this end, Harry Taplin and
Connie Pawelczak have offered to do a “Historical tour” of the facility following
church services once per month).
Our pledge program this year was themed: “How does your pledge bear fruit”, and it
was a broad yet intensive program to help the parish understand where their money goes
in the parish, and why pledging is so important.
Was the 2004 pledge drive a success? We'll let the numbers do the talking: pledge
income went up more than 17%. We are so thankful for each parishioners’ careful
consideration of their financial pledge this year, including those who were unable
to increase their gifts for various reasons.
So what’s next? This spring, we will hopefully focus significant energy on
developing a gifts’ discovery program to help us each discern the many gifts that
God has given us (even if we don’t know what they are yet!). Also, we want to
make sure that those who spend their time in the many ministries associated
with All Saints’ (over 70 ministries in fact), realize that they are in fact
bringing significant gifts of time and talent to those activities.
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Fundraising for the Parish
While parishioner gifts represent the major portion of the church's income,
other fundraisers are critical in meeting the financial requirements of
the church. Examples of those fundraising activities include:
- Fourth of July Fried Dough Booth
- Plant Sale
- Vacation Raffle
- Coin Banks
- Pie Workshop (and subsequent pie sales)
- Brass Ornament Sales
- Auction
Fundraising for the Diocese
There are two fundraising activities that are specifically targeted at
raising money for diocese:
- United Thank Offering
- Emergency Relief and Development Fund (formerly: Presiding Bishop's Fund)
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