Stewardship

Letter from the 2008 Stewardship Chair

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:21

What is your personal dream for St. John’s? What should we be doing that we are not doing now? What should we stop doing? What needs to be done better? And finally, what has this all got to do with stewardship? 

Your answers to the first four question will be as different as each member of St. John’s. The last question is my challenge to answer.

The mission of any Christian church is (very simply) to bring more people to Christ. You can dress up a mission statement anyway you like, but our charge has not changed since the first century.

The effectiveness of our staff; the care of our property; the presentation of our services; the activities of our mission and missionary committees; the quality our church school, youth and adult education efforts; are all parts of what make St. John’s unique.

None of this would be possible if we did not provide the proper financial support to our church. There must be a reason you keep coming back most weeks. Whatever your reason, that is the uniqueness of St. John’s. There are many other churches in Lancaster. There are also many worthy causes out there begging for your financial support. 

Here at St. John’s we have the opportunity to worship in a number of ways. We have the opportunity to get involved in serving our local community, and now we are looking at ways to serve the world at large. We have an excellent education program for anyone who chooses to participate. We have attractive facilities from which we can carry out these ministries.

Each of these ministries could be replicated somewhere else. What makes St. John’s unique is that it is where we (the people of St. John’s) come together to do them all. As well as we do them, we are always looking for ways to improve them. We know we can do more. Our clergy and lay staff members are here to provide leadership and support of these efforts to do more and do it better. Part of our challenge in carrying out this work in the future will be providing the needed financial support.  That is why stewardship is one of the important keys to our mission.

John Gouveia

Links

Potentially-useful tools for calculating your pledge:

Proportional Giving Calculator (Interactive)
http://holytrinitytoronto.org/stewardship/calculator.php
(Church of the Holy Trinity, Toronto)

Tithe Calculator (Interactive)
(1) Enter income; shows full tithe, half tithe, ¼ tithe; annual, monthly, weekly amounts.
(2) Enter income and current pledge; shows current percentage of income.
http://www.nacba.net/tithe.htm
(National Association of Church Business Administration)

Proportional Giving Guide (Chart)
http://www.trinityboston.org/giv_ann_prp.asp