Time: Sharing Your Presence
Joy shared is multiplied, sorrow halved.
“Community” is the answer most frequently given to the question, “What are you hoping for in joining our congregation?” Yet “community” only happens when we live and work together over time. Vibrant congregations are made up of people who enjoy being with one another, playing together and working together for a better world. Money alone will not create a vibrant congregation. There are many churches with large endowments sitting empty and dark on Sunday mornings, because their donors have lost interested or died. Your presence is the most valuable gift you can share with us.
Regardless of your ability to give money (and sharing your treasure is important), your loving presence is even more important. Sometimes life reduces us to circumstances where there is nothing else we can do, and sharing our presence is all that we can manage. When those times come, it is good to be part of a community where we already know and love and trust one another.
Your presence is also crucial if we are to grow in spirit. Here we consider the deepest questions of life – why am I here? What is my purpose in living? How can I make the world a better place? What happens to me after I die? It is a great gift when you share your thoughts about how we can best answer those questions. It is your presence – your singing, gratitude, questioning, knowledge, your warmth during coffee hour – which make up the richness of congregational life. That’s why we hope to see you not just every Sunday in worship, but during the week at one or more of our many activities or committees.
Sharing your presence – that’s where the rewards of congregational life are created.
Talent: Sharing Your Skills
Many come together to create religious community.
It is through sharing our gifts and our lives that we become beloved of one another.
Whether you help out as an usher or greeter, work on our website, provide assistance on building projects, or work as an active member of a committee, we build a sacred and successful congregation.
Below are our key committees and their charge toward the success of our church:
Worship invites us to experience the sacred.
Music gives voice to our spirit.
Religious Education guides our children to seek truth and meaning.
The Committee on Ministry deepens our journey to find and live out our ministries.
Caring are stewards of our health and well-being.
Fellowship brings us together in celebration with each other.
Membership welcomes and orients those who would join us.
Stewardship invites our gifts of time, talent, and treasure.
Finance are the stewards of those gifts of treasure.
Long-Range Planning tends the vision of our future.
Building and Grounds are the stewards of our sacred space.
Green Sanctuary celebrates the interconnected web of which we are a part.
Communications expresses our vision to the world.
Social Justice calls us to turn words into deeds.
Treasure: Sharing Your Monetary Gifts
Running a church of this size is a complicated and expensive undertaking. Our annual budget covers services in seven functional areas:
We are a self-sustaining congregation, meaning that we get no support from other organizations or the Unitarian Universalist Association. In addition to fundraisers that we conduct throughout the year, which total around 15% of our annual budget, we rely on the generous gifts of our members to meet the remaining 85% that makes our congregation successful.
We do not tithe in our congregation. Rather, we encourage all of our members and friends to be as generous as possible. The Unitarian Universalist Association has outlined fair share giving guidelines, which suggest levels of support based on your income and commitment to the congregation. Your fair share should be somewhere between 2% and 10% of your total income.
For complete chart and guidelines for determining your fair share, please see our handout “Pledging Questions and Answers.”
