Faithful Stewards: The Annual Giving Campaign

Terry Johnston and Ann Henley, Committee Co-chairs

The vestry of the Chapel of the Cross recently reorganized its stewardship committee and renamed it the Stewardship Formation Committee. This was done to encourage a broadly defined variety of stewardship efforts and initiatives, including expanded participation by parishioners in stewardship activities. The first of these initiatives will soon be under way. Though the name, the Annual Giving Campaign, will be new—in the past it's been the Every Member Canvass—and though it is now part of a comprehensive, year-round focus on stewardship, this yearly event in the life of our parish will follow familiar procedures and have familiar objectives as its goals.

In mid-October each household in the parish will receive a pledge card and a time and talent survey in the mail. On Sunday, October 19, a vestry forum will discuss stewardship and, more specifically, the financial needs and the annual giving vision of the parish. On the evenings of October 21 and 22, approximately 50 parishioners will gather to call every parish household to encourage participation in this year's Annual Giving Campaign. November 23 will be In-Gathering Sunday, when we will celebrate the pledges brought forward and dedicate them to the furthering of God's work in the world.

If you do not receive a pledge packet by October 17, please call the parish office (919-929-2193), Terry Johnston , or Ann Henley so that another packet can be sent to you. You may, if it's more convenient, submit your pledge and fill out the time and talent survey online through the parish website, www.thechapelofthecross.org. But we hope that many of you will be at home on October 21 and 22, when your fellow parishioners will call to say, “Hello. Did you receive your packet in the mail? Do you have any question about the Chapel of the Cross and its financial mission?” We would like you to think of this part of the campaign as belonging, not just to the church's ministry of stewardship, but also to its ministry of hospitality. These phone calls offer us an opportunity each fall to connect with each other in a parish which, as the rector recently remarked, is “no longer small, and no longer in a little village.”

On many occasions in the coming weeks we will have occasion to think prayerfully about our financial resources and about our obligation, as members of the Body of Christ, to remit a portion of those resources to our church. As we make those difficult dollar decisions, let us keep in mind the word of the collect for Thanksgiving Day, which we will pray together just a few days after In-Gathering Sunday.

In that prayer we ask to be made “faithful stewards” of God's great bounty, “for the provision of our necessities and the relief of all who are in need, to the glory of your Name.” Each of those phrases reminds us of an important aspect of the duty and the blessing of stewardship. In the first place, our gifts provide the everyday 'necessities' of the parish life we all enjoy: maintenance, quite literally, of the roof over our head; salaries and insurance for clergy and staff; materials for Christian education; and the technologies required to communicate with each other. Our gifts provide, in the second place, for “all who are in need”: relief for victims of natural disasters and wars, food for the hungry through our commitment to the Inter-Faith Council, clothing and other essentials for children at the Thompson Home, and support and comfort for those with HIV-AIDS. And finally, our gifts provide us a tangible way to praise and honor God: we “glorify His Name” when we return to Him a portion of the bounty with which He has so generously and graciously blessed us.