Three weeks now into collecting our Commitment Card following our Season of Stewardship. We are doing a faith audit of our parish before we begin ministry planning for 2007.

We have already evaluated parishioner commitment to worship and to mutual support. (See previous posts.) Now we can consider parishioner financial commitment.

To date we have received 196 pledges to the general operating fund, totaling $636,101. This is a 34% increase over last year’s pledge.

There remains 76 parish families who contributed to the parish treasury in 2006, but who have not yet made a pledge for 2007. Together they contributed another $85,000.

Pledge data, like the other data we have collected from our Commitment Cards requires a context to be understood. In a previous comment (See November 7 below) anonymous posted data associated with a previous pledge campaign. Anonymous remembered that 5 years ago (2002?) the parish received 372 pledges totaling >$800,000.

I asked our General Manager, Jim Tracy, to confirm this report. The table below summarizes parish pledging trends.

I asked our General Manager if it is possible that Anonymous may be remembering the pledge campaign from 2001. Jim assured me Anonymous is misreporting the data. He suggested Anonymous may be remembering a combined report that may have included two pledges: One made to the parish operating fund. A second pledge made to a capital campaign.

Having clarified a potential misinterpretation of the pledge data we may ask: What do our Commitment Cards suggest about the financial response-ability of the parish?

It seems parishioners are taking serious the call to faithful financial stewardship.

The tithe as a standard of faithful giving remains a faith challenge for many of our parishioners. I asked our Staff Administrator to generate a report detailing the range of pledges by dollars pledged.

The average average income in Loudoun County is $110,000. Our average pledge is $3,245. As a covenant community, obviously we have not achieved the biblical standard of faithful financial giving. But be encouraged. We have seen a 31% increase in the our average pledge, rising from $2,476.

Once someone takes the biblical call of the tithe to heart, it time to pray through this challenge. One does not redirect the focus of one’s life overnight.

For some the challenge involves a struggle with fear. For others it involves wrestling through a vaule system that had been formed in early years without regard to substantive faith. For still others it involves the very practical work of reshaping a family budget, or crawling out of irresponsible debt.

A jump of 34% in pledge in one year suggests our parishioners are serious-minded people of faith who are taking responsibility for the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God in our midst. If we continue to exercise our faith, if we resolve to truly support one another, if we continue to trust God's promise of blessing, our parish will rise and we will surely become a faithful covenant community where no one stands alone. Any time. Any place.