Dear fellow saints of St. Andrews,
When my family gives money to St. Andrews, I don't feel like we're giving it away. It's still right here and we can see what it is doing. We're so proud to be a part of the wonderful things that St. Andrews does for our members, our community, and our world. My story of generosity comes from the Lutheran church my family attended in Connecticut when I was in elementary school. One day there was an article about our church in the newspaper, because our congregation refused to lock the doors of the church, ever. The newspaper reporter thought this was a horribly risky thing to do, but our church managed and accepted the risks in order to be available to everyone, all the time. I see that same spirit of openness and responsiveness at work today at St. Andrews, as we experience God's love through friendships, support from our fabulous pastors, and opportunities to help others.
In our household, contributions to our church are a major monthly budget item, alongside our mortgage, utilities, and savings for college. It's important to us that the amount of money we put toward different things reflects their significance in our lives. I've really tried to minimize our cell phone bills! John owns a couple pairs of expensive binoculars, because birdwatching is his favorite thing to do. Valerie and I love horses, and you can tell that from the bills for board, farriers, veterinarians, and lessons. We want our household budget to also reflect our faith in God, and to make possible the great work happening at St. Andrews.
Our congregation has expressed a desire to invest more in our youth and family ministry by hiring a full-time staff person to lead our efforts to engage multiple generations in faith, fellowship, and service. This will involve changing youth ministry from an unfixed expense, which changes from year to year as part-time leaders come and go, to a fixed expense that we commit to regardless of fluctuations in annual giving. In order to do this in a fiscally responsible way, we need those pledge cards! Pledges allow our congregational leaders to make plans with confidence and move in the direction we want to go. We've already made progress in accumulating pledges specifically for youth ministry, and we've been able to increase from a half-time staff position to three-quarter time. Compared to the effort we all made for our recent building fund, the needed increase in our annual budget for a full-time youth minister is relatively small, less than 5% relative to the total annual church budget. But unlike the temporary building fund, our goal is to sustain the increase for youth ministry permanently. I know that together we can do this, and I hope that we will do it!
Yours in Christ,
Cathy Richter
Council President 2015
When my family gives money to St. Andrews, I don't feel like we're giving it away. It's still right here and we can see what it is doing. We're so proud to be a part of the wonderful things that St. Andrews does for our members, our community, and our world. My story of generosity comes from the Lutheran church my family attended in Connecticut when I was in elementary school. One day there was an article about our church in the newspaper, because our congregation refused to lock the doors of the church, ever. The newspaper reporter thought this was a horribly risky thing to do, but our church managed and accepted the risks in order to be available to everyone, all the time. I see that same spirit of openness and responsiveness at work today at St. Andrews, as we experience God's love through friendships, support from our fabulous pastors, and opportunities to help others.
In our household, contributions to our church are a major monthly budget item, alongside our mortgage, utilities, and savings for college. It's important to us that the amount of money we put toward different things reflects their significance in our lives. I've really tried to minimize our cell phone bills! John owns a couple pairs of expensive binoculars, because birdwatching is his favorite thing to do. Valerie and I love horses, and you can tell that from the bills for board, farriers, veterinarians, and lessons. We want our household budget to also reflect our faith in God, and to make possible the great work happening at St. Andrews.
Our congregation has expressed a desire to invest more in our youth and family ministry by hiring a full-time staff person to lead our efforts to engage multiple generations in faith, fellowship, and service. This will involve changing youth ministry from an unfixed expense, which changes from year to year as part-time leaders come and go, to a fixed expense that we commit to regardless of fluctuations in annual giving. In order to do this in a fiscally responsible way, we need those pledge cards! Pledges allow our congregational leaders to make plans with confidence and move in the direction we want to go. We've already made progress in accumulating pledges specifically for youth ministry, and we've been able to increase from a half-time staff position to three-quarter time. Compared to the effort we all made for our recent building fund, the needed increase in our annual budget for a full-time youth minister is relatively small, less than 5% relative to the total annual church budget. But unlike the temporary building fund, our goal is to sustain the increase for youth ministry permanently. I know that together we can do this, and I hope that we will do it!
Yours in Christ,
Cathy Richter
Council President 2015
