This week, Sara and I are deciding exactly how much more than $10,000 we will pledge to the Happy hearts, Hopeful future! campaign.
Commitment Sunday is this Sunday, December 14. In worship, All Saints’ people will receive Commitment Cards and make three-year commitments. After worship, we will learn the preliminary total.
Perhaps you already received by mail the last encouraging letter with a colorful photo brochure. By now, you’ve heard plenty from your pastor.
Take a moment to consider these words from one shy advanced meeting participant, who wanted not to be named:
I am, as a general rule, uneasy about fund drives for churches. Part of it comes from growing up Catholic, which means that funding was never really an issue. The RC church sits on HUGE resources, so there was never much on a issue in an archdiocese as large as the Chicago Archdiocese.
Part of it comes from watching televangelists spend 55 minutes out of an hour exhorting believers to give them money.
Part of it comes from a few bad stewardship rallies where guilt, not joy, was the general motivator.
This campaign? It rings NONE of those alarm bells in my head and heart. There was no guilt, no sense of shame, no sense of having anyone’s heart questioned. There was just a task to approach, and a way to approach it.
I guess to me it feels more like a project, a special piece of work that can be completed, and then looked at with a measure of satisfaction at a job well done. It feels like a chance to make a true difference. And those chances don’t come around often.
My spouse and I are looking at our situation, but we are determined to be a part of this. we want to be a part of what helps All Saints to endure, and to be to others what it has been for us.
From a favorite TV show of mine, I had two quotes came to mind.
“I’d rather try something and fail than do nothing and fail anyway,” and, “What is built endures. And what is loved endures.”
I look forward to building the days ahead with the family of All Saints.
So does your pastor. I am joyfully in prayer for each of you and for All Saints’ hope-filled future.
Thanks and peace,
Pastor Clark
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