From the Rector: A Thanksgiving Pledge Update

Stephen Shaver

Dear friends,

In this Thanksgiving week, one of the things I'm most thankful for is this parish. I often share with my clergy friends that this is a church where I'd want to worship even if I wasn't serving here as a priest. To be completely honest, that's not something I can say about every single church I've ever served!

As a clergy person, you have to be versatile enough to serve in a wide variety of congregations with different personalities and styles. You find the part of yourself that overlaps with who that congregation is, and you learn from one another, and there's great blessing in that.

Still, the truth is that in the long run it's a gift to be able to serve a church you would gravitate toward on your own terms. And I really love this parish. The mix of people, the way we serve our neighbors, the beauty of our worship, music, and sacred space, our rich history, our location at the heart of Santa Rosa and Sonoma County, the community our family has found, and the ways people's lives are growing and being transformed here make this church a special and beloved home for me.

So I'm also grateful that we support this place together. Our pledge campaign team shared some numbers with me this week that I want to pass along to you, now that our official pledge campaign has come to an end:

• As of today, we have 140 pledging households for 2025. That number includes 17 newly pledging households!
• Our 140 pledges amount to a total of $460,695.56, taking us 94% of the way to our baseline goal of $490,000.
  
• There are still about 15 households who pledged in 2024 and who we haven't received pledges from yet for 2025. Of these, some may still be planning to submit pledges; others may not be in a position to pledge this year. Our pledge team estimates that if most of those who pledged previously and are still active in the parish end up pledging, we could end up with over $500,000 in pledges for 2025.

That's great news--and it's something worth celebrating. As many of you know well, our parish has had a longstanding (over a decade!) structural deficit of between $90,000 and $120,000. Our vestry was working hard to close that deficit pre-COVID. The pandemic brought some temporary financial assistance, but also brought inflation. Now it is time to complete the task of setting us on a sustainable financial course.

The reality is that even a great pledge campaign can't do that all on its own. Our vestry has been working to identify ways we can reduce our expenses that make the most sense for our members, our programs, and our staff, and we'll be ready to share those at our Annual Meeting in January. But meanwhile, by pledging generously, our parish is stepping up to give our vestry a wider scope of possibility and help us maintain more of the broad program we want to offer. To not only reach but maybe even exceed our pledge goal this year shows the kind of vitality we have as a church, and it bodes very well for our future. I'm deeply moved by the generosity and commitment of our community. Thank you!

It's good to be back at church this week after a week of family vacation. I'm looking forward to our Thanksgiving Day Eucharist and to the start of Advent this Sunday. See you soon.

In Christ's love,

Stephen