Dear Parishioners,
In a year or so the Church of the Resurrection will be faced with a choice: continue to make principal and interest payments or reduce parish ministries that have become the fabric and soul of our Church. The Lifegivings initiative calls for each of us to make a choice.
The Church of the Resurrection asks for your support of Lifegivings in order to help balance our budget and finish the Church’s bell tower. With the help of your pledge, we will be able to continue to meet the needs of our growing parish.
Please prayerfully consider how you and your family can give to the Lifegivings initiative. Below you will find more information about Lifegivings and a downloadable version of the pledge card for you to print and fill out. Please return your pledge to the Church by the end of January.
If you have already made a pledge to the Lifegivings initiative, we thank you for your support.
God’s Peace,
Rev. Jerome P. Rodenfels
Pastor
Deacon Byron Phillips
Pastoral Associate
_______..Download Lifegivings Pledge Card Here.
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__.__.There are two components to the Lifegivings initiative:
- Balancing the Budget
Our annual operating shortfall is approximately $200,000. This includes the monthly payments on a $3,100,000 mortgage to the Diocese at an interest rate of 4.5%. Lifegivings Gifts will help reduce our deficit in two different ways:
Debt Reduction – Our Ongoing Obligation
In 2001, The Church of the Resurrection began its first initiative to build our current home. The total cost of the project was $8.9 million. Through the generosity and commitment of our parishioners the total amount raised was $5.8 million. We financed the remaining $3.1 million with a loan. Every $1,000 contributed will reduce our annual mortgage payments by $110, helping us balance our budget. This will also help the Diocese to loan these funds to less fortunate parishes of our Diocese. We will also be able to look at future projects for our parish once our debt is eliminated.
Offertory – Our Weekly Obligation
To maintain our current ministries and to balance our budget, we need parishioners to increase their weekly offertory giving. The increase equates to $4,000 per week. The weekly offertory collection supports the day-to-day operating expenses of the parish, including:
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• Religious education
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• Maintaining our facilities
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• Parish staff salaries and benefits
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• Liturgy (music, candles, etc.)
To help balance the budget, increases in operating expenses have been limited to 1.2% during 2007-2008, which is less than the annual rate of inflation. The goal of the offertory campaign is to increase our annual offertory collections by the $200,000 needed to balance our operating budget. Every $1 contributed will reduce the shortfall by $1.
- Finishing the Bell Tower
A group of parishioners has offered to finish construction of the bell tower as a gift for our parish’s 25th
anniversary. We hope it will be completed for the Mass that will be celebrated by our Bishop at the end of June 2008. However, to be completed the bell tower still needs bells. In addition to our bell recast from the first sanctuary, we will need three more bells along with their electronic ringers for a total cost of $55,000.
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Our Lifegivings Gifts
- Balancing the Budget – Debt Reduction and Offertory
Please join us by making a Lifegivings Gift that will help balance our parish’s budget through a pledge to reduce our principal debt. Gifts of stocks or other appreciated assets are also welcome.
We also ask that you please join us by making a Lifegivings pledge to increase your existing weekly offertory. For those who have not given on a regular basis before, please join us by pledging $10 or more per week.
More than 350 parishioners make their weekly offertory donations electronically via their credit card, checking account, or savings account. Please consider an electronic giving method so we can help save trees and postage expenses.
- Finishing the Bell Tower
Please join us by making a Lifegivings Gift to complete the construction of our church’s colonnade and bell tower.
