8:00 am - Holy Eucharist, Rite I
9:30 am - Christian Education (Sept to June 2nd)
10:30 am - Holy Eucharist, Rite II
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Stewardship
Stewardship 2017
It’s a blessing to witness how the ministries at Christ Church "walk in love" among us, transforming lives in our community and beyond. These ministries are profoundly relevant to Christ Church, to our community, and to God's walk with us. They restore hope, empower, uplift, and befriend, reaching people who felt they were forgotten. These ministries serve, feed, worship, and share. They are how we walk in love together.
We are grateful for the ways that you already “walk in love.” You are faithful in your presence, witness, and generosity help to sustain our ministries and our life together. Thank you. “Walk in love” is a call to us to keep taking steps to imitate Jesus in a way that focuses on the actions of God among us and the actions and movements of God within us. It is a call to respond proportionally, step for step.
Proportional giving is offering to God, in a committed and faithful manner, a portion of what God has given us. The Biblical guideline for tithing is ten percent of one’s income, given in gratitude for God’s blessings and to further God’s work in the world. Giving a percentage of our income—increasing each year toward or beyond the tithe—is a process that helps deepen our awareness of the abundance of God’s love.
In the coming weeks, you will hear stories from people who share the pews with you at Christ Church and who walk deeply in many ministries here. We encourage you to listen and prayerfully consider the impact the ministries at Christ Church offer to each of us and to our community. And then, discern your responsibility to use the gifts God gives you to do the work God calls you to do. Come to Christ Church for worship, sit in your favorite pew, and be led by God to connect in the many ways we are fed through Jesus Christ to go out and "walk in love" with our Lord!
Between now and Christ Church's Celebration Sunday on November 7th, decide how you will walk, move, do, act, and give with greater intent in the coming year. The Vestry at Christ Church has already committed not to simply repeat their pledge amount from last year, but to prayerfully consider proportional giving. Please follow their lead.
Your annual pledge is an essential gift that keeps Christ Church’s ministries active. Walk in love with us!
Faithfully yours,
Martin Tabaka, Stewardship Committee Chairman
Click here to listen to Christ Church parishioner Jeremy Welts talk about what stewardship means to him.
Here is a chart which shows proportional giving from 2% to 15% monthly. If you would like to use an online calculator to evaluate proportional giving options for your family, please visit: http://www.nacba.net/documents/tithe.htm
If you reduce the hours you spend watching television or surfing the Internet on your smartphone by 50%, what would you do with this time and how could it serve God?
If you read one more book a year,what would it be and how would the wisdom contribute to the people around you?
If you increase your pledge to Christ Church by 1, 2, or 5%,how much would your standard of living change each week?
The Stewardship Committee meets regularly throughout the year to plan and carry out its work.
From parishioners:
What does Christ Church mean to us?
Ann and I moved to Winchester 4 ½ years ago where we began a search for a new church we could call home. We decided on Christ Episcopal Church. We would report to Webster and Bridget each Sunday as we exited the church that we still were unpacking boxes as our process of blending two families into one house continued. That excuse only fooled Webster for a little while. He contacted Sally Megeath and Joyce Casey who were heading up the Angel Tree ministry at the time. He indicated to them that he thought that the Taylors were ready to “get involved.” We didn’t know it, but he was correct. Sally and Joyce gently introduced us to the work involved to make the holiday giving ministry take place in the community of Christ Church. Now Ann and I begin another year of being in charge of the Angel Tree, serving almost 150 children in the greater Winchester community.
We discovered what a great community we had joined at Christ Church. It is a community filled with love for one another, as the sermons each Sunday implore us to live our lives. Christ Church is also a community of Disciples wishing to share a message of love with any and all. The many ministries we have discovered allow us the opportunity to “get involved.” Through the following ministries, we have found so many ways to feel the love and share the love of the power of so many loving Disciples. Being members of the Outreach Committee allows us to stretch ourselves to help find ways to serve the community of Winchester (Panda Pantry, WATTS, CCAP, Salvation Army, and the annual Rummage Sale) as well as serving persons around the nation in need of funding or services (from flooding or other weather catastrophes) and even helping in the international arena (Stop Hunger Now, Mission Trip to the Dominican Republic and supporting the youth of the Church to learn from pilgrimage travels abroad).
The Family of Christ Church surrounds us with love and caring. We are surrounded by music from the adult choir and the children’s choirs. The music in our beautiful, historical sanctuary is such a wonderful part of our worship. The prayer life of Christ Church is also evident in the sermons, the prayer chain, the prayer shawls or squares from Knit Unto Others and even our special parish nurse, Helen Zebarth, who organizes the annual Health Fair. Helen, along with our Rector, Webster Gibson, the Assistant Rector, Bridget Coffey, the members of the Prayer Chain ministry, those active in Knit Unto Others, serve this special parish Family and make it a very strong loving family. Add those to the Men’s Fellowship, the evening Parish Fellowship, the parish picnic, Bingo, and the Octoberfest dinner and you have many opportunities to live out a Christian life of loving and caring.
We are thankful for the warmth and friendliness of our church Family and humbled to be a small part of the Church Home we call Christ Episcopal Church. It is such a wonderful place to share our time, talent and treasures!
Ann and Jim Taylor