One Body, Many Gifts

Dear Christ Church family,

As I complete my first year as your Rector, I am grateful to you for being part of our various Christ Church ministries, helping to maintain a vibrant Eastern Shore faith community in the Episcopal tradition.

We began our “One Body, Many Gifts” Stewardship Campaign just after Labor Day. I’m so thankful for the many ministry leaders who participated in our Ministry Fair, not only to educate our members about all of our various ministries but also offering a way for folks to get involved and volunteer. The pledge of our Time and Talent is very much part of our stewardship offering. Stewardship is not just about pledging money – it is God’s calling on our lives to care for all of the gifts and talents we’ve been given – our Time, Our Talent, our Treasure.

As we move into the treasure portion of this Campaign, I invite you to pray about your financial giving to Christ Church. This is very important. Some may see our beautiful building, our various styles of worship, our prime location in downtown Easton and think we have more than enough money and your money isn’t important. That just isn’t true – every pledge is important– for a few reasons:

1. Financial giving is a spiritual practice – and probably the most challenging of them. We all have bills to pay, families to support, but at the same time are called to give… at some level. Scripture tells us to tithe – which means 10%. It’s a big ask, and I believe God knows that and that is exactly the point. God calls us to trust and believe in Him who is working in our lives. You’ll hear more about this in one of my October sermons.

2. It is very difficult for us to create a budget for the church if we have no idea what our income is. Imagine trying to pay your bills, pay rent, buy a car, etc. and have no idea what you can afford. We work hard to be good stewards of the gifts you offer to Christ Church and, in order to do that, the first step is to fill out a pledge card. Tithing or otherwise – makes no difference. Just knowing what we can expect in terms of income is very helpful. Thank you.

3. We do have an endowment that we draw on to supplement our budget needs. That being said, the endowment is there to help Christ Church be a healthy church and shine the light of Christ in Easton for generations. The more we draw on it, the shorter amount of time it will last. There are federal guidelines on how much we should draw that we adhere to. When my predecessor, Father Bill Ortt, retired and we entered our transition phase, giving went down – which is completely normal during leadership transitions. To compensate, we increased our annual draw from 5% (which is the highest amount we should draw as a standard practice) to 7% to help Christ Church through the transition period. That transition period was extended through my first year as your Rector so I could concentrate on getting to know everyone. That year is coming to an end and we need to resume drawing on the endowment at a reasonable rate in order to preserve Christ Church for the future.

I trust that you will join me in the process of pledging, which I believe is an expression of our faith manifest in the world. Together we join as One Body, sharing Many Gifts. You have my promise that I will steward your gifts to the benefit of the parish for the honor and glory of God. If you’d like to have a conversation with me about pledging, I’m happy to meet with you. I hope you will join our mission by pledging some of your time, talent and treasure in 2027. On October 31, and November 1, we will be blessing all of our pledges. Please return your pledge on or before that weekend.

Faithfully,

The Rev. Anne Wright

Rector