Stewardship 2012
"Tending Our Hope"
Letter from the Dean of the Cathedral.....
Dear Cathedral Family,
On Sundays in October I look forward to hearing from members of the Cathedral family who will share with us the particular ways in which they have encountered God’s love through being here and how their faith and hope have been renewed and sustained. continued below.....
Letter from the Dean, con't....
Mid-October you will receive a letter from me asking for a commitment to financially support the mission and ministries of Christ Church Cathedral for 2012. We want everyone in the Cathedral family to be a part of this stewardship campaign. This is a time for each of us to consider prayerfully how our faith and hope are cared for within the community. Everyone is asked to make a commitment. The amount is not the question. What is needed is for everyone to be a part of Tending Our Hope. If making a formal pledge for 2012 is not possible, we still want you to participate, to make a plan for financial support. You are invited to be creative in deciding how to make this happen.
We are also adding a children’s component to our stewardship training. Sunday School aged children will be provided envelopes for their weekly use, and we will have a time for presenting them on Sunday morning.
Every household will be personally contacted later this month to invite their participation in our campaign. Please pray that we are faithful in support of the mission and ministries of this Cathedral, where as Canon Gibson wrote: “Words, music, hands and faces bear us up, letting us know that God’s grace makes all things new.”
Faithfully,
Johnny W. Cook +
The Sub-Dean's Message.....
Dear Cathedral Family,
“Tending Our Hope,” our stewardship theme for 2012, is in more than one sense a continuation of our themes of the last two years. In preparation for 2010, members of the Cathedral family engaged in “Telling Our Stories,” looking back at how we each came to be here at Christ Church Cathedral and articulating the reasons this sacred place is “home” for each of us. Last year, in preparation for 2011, members joined with our vestry in “Sharing Our Vision,” looking forward into the next three to five years to explore where God might be calling us in our mission and ministry together. The result of both of these endeavors is encapsulated in the conclusions your vestry reached in Visioning 2010-11. Our strengths, the gifts that brought so many of us here and are part of our stories, are our traditional and stirring worship, our sense of hospitality, and our historic position in the heart of Mobile. Our challenges as we move forward are to achieve and maintain solid financial health, to improve and maximize the use of our historic facilities, and to nurture the growth of our many young families.
Continued below right......
The Sub Dean's Message, con't....
This year we pause to focus our attention on how we are preparing to meet those challenges. Thus, in a practical sense, “Tending Our Hope” is another way of saying
“tending to our business.” In our stewardship we are committing ourselves to building and strengthening our various programs for young families, to continuing in a prudent project-by-project manner with the improvement of our facilities, and to making the financial plans and commitments necessary for moving forward into the future God has in store for us.
In a spiritual sense, “Tending Our Hope” means attending closely to those elements of our shared life that lift us up and strengthen us, enabling us to be ministers to the love of God in a world beset by anxiety and fear in a time of many uncertainties. That means paying attention to the many ways we experience God’s love here: in the faces and voices of our children, in the talents of our musicians, in the words of scripture and teaching, in the beauty of our buildings, in the tastes of our “hospitality.”
Then, in the most inclusive sense, “Tending Our Hope” means accepting the responsibility each of us shares to support and continue the mission and ministry of Christ Church Cathedral. In order for all the gifts we have received to thrive and grow, each of us must commit to sustaining them—with our money, our work, and above all with our prayers. How well we answer God’s call to us depends upon how well we tend our hope.
Faithfully,
Beverly F. Gibson +
If you would like to share with others how your hope has been renewed by our shared life in the Cathedral family, we invite you to submit your thoughts in writing. You may place them in the alms basin,send them in the mail, or via e-mail to office@christchurchcathedralmobile.org. We will
make these available for viewing on our website and may use them in a variety of ways throughout the year as we tend our hope and pray that God will continue to bless us and call us to mission together. Your name must be included with your remarks, but let us know if you wish your published comments to remain anonymous.
Calendar for Stewardship
On the Sundays in October we will hear from members of the Cathedral family about how their hope has been sustained here at Christ Church. As we live with many unknowns in our world, our work, and our individual and family lives, we may easily succumb to anxiety and fear. Unfortunately, powerful forces around us feed on and fuel our fears. In the Church—the Body of Christ—we encounter the love of God that conquers fear. Words, music, hands and faces bear us up, letting us know that God’s grace makes all things new.
Weekly introduction by Alice Kracke,
vestry class of 2013
Sunday, October 2
Cleamon Downs
Sunday, October 9
Margaret Thigpen, Travis Russell
Friday, October 14
Personal letter from Dean Cook
sent to every household
Sunday, October 16
Stella Reindl
Introduction of the Every Member Canvas by
Rick Mitchell, senior warden and
Burnley Davis, junior warden
Sunday, October 16 through Saturday, November 5
Visits to every household
Sunday, October 23
Henry and Kristyn Seawell
Sunday, October 30
Bill and Deanie Skinner
Financial Update through August 2011
Operating
20102011
20102011 Revenue $329,762$355,844
$329,762$355,844 Expenses $399,439 $407,154
$399,439 $407,154 Difference ($ 69,677) ($ 51,310)
General Fund Balance $21,680 $ 56,164
