Our stewardship efforts began at our 2010 Vestry.  Our message at Vestry was that Christ the Redeemer was challenged by a lack of cash for operations.  We only had $3,700 in the bank and we owed the Diocese $9,400 due to a salary continuance request that we asked the Diocese for in 2009.  We had a fabulous $18,000 increase in donations in 2009 and we hoped to build on this momentum and achieve a new high in donations for 2010.

We continued throughout the year promoting the benefits to our parish and our parishioners for having automatic monthly deductions through PAD (Pre-authorized Donations) rather than donating only when attending, and by giving short weekly updates in our bulletin about the previous week’s donations.

Our big stewardship effort in 2010 was our “Celebrate Stewardship” campaign that ran through October and November, culminating in a sermon by Glenn Mitchell followed by a fun celebration luncheon.  The objective of the stewardship campaign was to educate our parish about all aspects of stewardship and encourage everyone to reflect on their ability to give back to God what he has so generously given to us.

The stewardship campaign was a huge undertaking for the Stewardship Committee, but it had a fabulous outcome!  Here is just a snapshot of our results:

• We had 34 people respond to our request for a pledge for 2011.  This is slightly more than half of our identifiable givers.
• Of those who responded, the total increase in pledged offerings for 2011 is $17,000.
• We had 6 people either go on envelopes or start on PAD.
• Our PAD in December was $2,600, but with the updated PAD amounts implemented in January, our new PAD amount is $3,965.  Our PAD was only $1,200 per month just 2 years ago.
• Craig has a dozen or so “time and talent” submissions from our congregation offering to do something that they are interested in to support our parish.

It is not too late for people to submit a pledge form or a “time and talent card” for 2011 if you have not done so already.  Anyone on the Stewardship Committee would be happy to answer questions you may have about our campaign or about stewardship in general.

Thank you to everyone that responded to our campaign.  The Committee would also like to recognize Pamela’s efforts in coordinating the luncheon, Ryan’s creative style in designing all the print material, Janet’s coordination of all the printing and mailing of the material, Donna Hulbert’s efforts in accumulating our statistics, and all those selfless people that volunteered their time in one way or another to make this stewardship campaign a success.

Stewardship is not just something that happens once a year.  Our Stewardship Committee will continue into 2011 sharing our ideas on stewardship.  We encourage everyone to embrace your commitment to the stewardship of Christ the Redeemer!