Stewardship Letter 2025
St. Paul’s Lutheran Church Stewardship Letter – November 2024
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
Greetings to you in the blessed name of Jesus – our Lord and our Savior! Each year in November, St. Paul’s turns its attention to the subject of Christian stewardship. Stewardship is the free and joyous activity of the child of God and God’s family, the Church, in managing all of life and life’s resources for God’s purposes. Through this attention we hope to encourage good stewardship decisions by our individual members and practice good stewardship in our life together as a congregation.
As will be explained later in this letter, our congregational decisions this year may need to include some difficult cuts. For this reason we are asking everyone to please give close attention to this stewardship emphasis and think carefully about the help they can give.
Our theme for this year’s stewardship emphasis comes from Mark 10:49. There Jesus says to a man: “Take heart. Get up; he is calling you.” The sermon on Sunday, Nov. 10 will be based on this text. On the following Sunday, Nov. 17, we will observe our annual Commitment Sunday – the day we ask our members and friends to share their intentions for giving in the coming year.
As you think through your intentions, we ask you to remember the following three considerations from our theme verse. These are: a joyous heart, a generosity moved by faith, and a direction which comes from the Lord’s leading.
When thinking about your financial giving, please consider the Biblical wisdom of setting aside a portion of your time and income for God’s work through the church, often called a “tithe.” Percentage giving is an excellent way to “give as the Lord has given to you” (Deut. 16:17). Many of us know the blessings of giving ten percent. Some are giving even more. As you think through the percentage you will give, perhaps this is a good time to challenge yourself by planning to give a little extra – maybe an increase of one percent.
Regarding your giving of time and talents, we ask you to please consider participating in one or more of the Service Opportunities listed on the separate page of this mailing. Most of you are serving in at least one such way already. And certainly all of us are serving the Lord in our homes, jobs and communities. But serving through the church meets important needs and brings unique blessings. If you’re not already serving with us, please consider adding a commitment of service to your schedule and let us know of your intention.
To indicate your intentions of time, talent and treasure giving at St. Paul’s, we ask that you please fill out and return the enclosed My Christian Stewardship 2025 form. If you have questions about the form or any of the service items, please contact our church leadership.
As for stewarding our life together, church leadership is currently preparing our budget, identifying candidates for next year’s leaders and recruiting needed volunteers. Please know that the commitments you indicate on the My Christian Stewardship form will help us in these efforts. Our proposed budget and ballot of leaders will be prepared by the Church Council and voted upon at our Voter’s Meeting December 8.
As you think about your giving and participation with us in the coming year, please also be aware of the following updates regarding the condition and needs of our congregation:
- As you can see on Sundays, worship attendance continues to be good and people are sharing their gifts and talents in many ways. Our church continues to be blessed with excellent staff and lay leadership and God is indeed working through our efforts. One area of challenge is our Chinese ministry. While attendance at the online Chinese service with overseas friends continues to be good, our in-person worship is not.
- Regarding our finances, regular contributions to the church this year have unfortunately fallen behind our budget to the extent that our leaders are greatly concerned. The church continues to meet its obligations and carry out its work, but we’ve used almost all our savings. The Church Council has addressed this by proposing certain cuts to next year’s budget which we can vote on at our December meeting if need be. Hopefully we will receive a good stewardship response and can avoid them.
- As most of you know, the church is in the process of selling a portion of its property to eliminate the remaining mortgage and fund new projects. Although we are currently under contract with a buyer and moving forward in the re-zoning process, we won’t receive any proceeds until summer of 2026 at the earliest (and probably later).
- Paul’s continues to make its mortgage payments on the 2012 building improvements and its sale-related legal fees through the Building Fund thanks to the generosity of many extra gifts from our members. We are asking that everyone would please consider helping us (again) in this way as they are able.
- With all this in mind, we ask that you would then prayerfully consider how much you can contribute to our work together in the coming year and share this on the My Commitment Form. You may bring the form to our worship services on November 17, drop it off in the office, send it via mail, or email it to our Business Manager (Businessmanager@stpaulsfallschurch.org).
On behalf of the entire congregation, we thank you for your partnership in the mission of our Lord through St. Paul’s. Together we are sharing the life-changing good news of God’s love for all people in Christ Jesus. May God bless us in our stewardship of His gifts, and in our life together as His people.
Pastor Mark Shaltanis and the Board of Stewardship