My name is Jim Harris, and my wife, Linda, and I sold our main home in Houston and moved permanently to College Station in 2018. We initially came to College Station so that I could teach part time after I retired from industry. We started looking for a local Episcopal church in 2019. There are three choices, and after checking out each we chose St Thomas.
We are typically only in College Station between October and April, and this coupled with the pandemic has made it difficult for us to get to know other parishioners. In this regard, participating on the stewardship committee this year has been a great opportunity.
Every Episcopal church, probably any church for that matter, has its own culture and personality. And Linda and I can certainly attest to this having lived all around our country due to job transfers, and then more recently attending churches all up and down the East Coast, from Key West Florida to Bar Harbor Maine, while traveling on our boat. Aside from several having greater historical legacy, like the Old North Church in Boston of Paul Revere fame, few compared to Saint Thomas with its it’s mixture of young and old, the number of parishioners engaged in church activities outside of Sunday worship, and its musical ministry. And its associated Christian education missions like the Early Learning Center and Canterbury House make St. Thomas particularly special. I think I can honestly say that we did not meet one spiritual leader more inspiring than Father Rich.
As part of this year’s stewardship planning, I learned that even after the hugely successful stewardship campaign last year, made all the more challenging because of the pandemic, we still had not obtained enough pledges to balance our budget.
Now, there are two ways of balancing a budget of course, increasing pledges, and reducing spending. Fifty-nine percent of our annual budget, or about $330,000, goes to pay staff. This is a big number, so the committee did some comparisons to other Episcopal churches. The conclusion, St Thomas is at the low end of this spectrum.
We only devote 2% of our budget on the biggest potential area of discretionary spending, Outreach, that helps families and individuals beyond our congregation.
The rest of the budget goes to pay for maintenance and operation of our buildings, a Diocesan assessment, and of course supplies for our worship services.
So, my takeaway is that our church has done a great job of managing expenses while still operating a wide selection of impactful ministries. WE are the Church, and this year our goal is to balance our budget for the first time in a very long time, and this is especially important now. As you know we are in the process of seeking a new rector, and a balanced budget is one of the impactful things we can do to attract the most talented candidates.
During the recent rally day there was a lot of interest in the outreach activities, and as a result many of you signed up to donate your 500 minutes to this end. If we manage to exceed our pledge goal, it will be an opportunity to add some treasure to your time and talent, and to expand Outreach.
But this is not a PBS pledge drive where, if you donate, you’ll get a DVD set, or your name added to the platinum donors list. Here what you give is confidential, between you and the Lord. And it’s not what you give, it’s what’s in your heart when you give it.
All of you should by now have received your pledge packets. If you haven’t, please come by the table under the gathering tree after either Sunday service and pick one up. If you’ve already pledged, a big Thank You on behalf of the Stewardship committee. If you haven’t, but have in the past, please try to find room in your heart to increase your pledge. If you haven’t pledged in the past, please consider making this your first year. We ARE the Church, so let’s make a difference!
