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| Letter to the congregation... | | Oct. 3, 2011
Friends in Christ,
We have so many reasons to be thankful for God’s many blessings at Gloria Dei, and once again Lutheran faith and tradition calls on us to respond to those blessings with a generous return.
The Bible reminds us that God is the source of creation and all we have received, and so through the gifts we have received we are enabled to return to the Lord generously.
You may remember the struggle we shared last year as we worked to bring the pledged income in line with the actual expenses at Gloria Dei. That process was hard on all of us, and resulted in painful decisions to reduce the size of our church staff. As tough as that was, several good results have followed.
First, the faithfulness of the congregation to the increased pledges of so many has been largely carried through this entire year. Thus we have not spent valuable time and energy being anxious about finances. This has freed staff and lay leaders to attend to more important issues of faith. What a gift you have given us in this!
Second, the transitions of this past year have opened our eyes to new ways of functioning together. Pastors and lay staff have had the opportunity to try new areas of ministry and new ways of serving God and the congregation. Many of these have been a real blessing.
Now we begin a new stewardship campaign and a new budgeting year. Your generous response to the campaign will give us a chance to grow our ministries in anticipation of a new senior pastor at Gloria Dei.
Our hope is that those of you who haven’t been able to participate in our stewardship efforts in the past will consider a pledge, and that those of you who have pledged previously will contemplate a larger contribution. Your generosity will continue to support our mission to be a fully caring, healing and welcoming community.
We welcome our future together under the wisdom of II Corinthians 8: 7-9: “Now as you excel in everything — in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you — so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking. I do not say this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others. For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.”
As we receive God’s inexpressibly generous gift in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us, we too are invited to share our riches faithfully, that others may become richly blessed through the ministry of Gloria Dei. It is an invitation we gladly accept.
Faithfully Yours,
Pastor John Mann
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