Our Schedule of Services:

Here is our schedule;

more information may be found by downloading the bulletin.

Sunday October 9:

8:30 am In Person Holy Eucharist Service

10:30 am In Person(also streamed virtually) Holy Eucharist Service

Link For Facebook

Sunday 10:30 Bulletin



October 6, 2022

Stewardship Season

Hi everyone,

In October each year, we celebrate Stewardship Season at St Augustine’s, and I wanted to write a little bit about that this week. Most of our families will have received a letter by now from Richard Krueger, our Finance Committee chair, talking a bit about our pledging and giving for the coming year, and some of our parish goals.

Since my arrival as rector, we’ve used a model of “Three T’s” of Time, Talent, and Treasure. There’s nothing magical about those words, apart from them giving us a very strong framework for standing in gratitude and humility before God about all kinds of gifts we have. Time is perhaps our greatest gift, bound up in both God’s Creation of us and this world, and also our God-given free will to choose how we shall live out our days. Talents are the blessings we discover that we have as we grow, live, and share with others. Treasure is the blanket term for our practical resources, including our finances.

Stewardship, generally, is a matter of recognizing that for ALL that we receive or earn in our lifetime, we are called to make use of it on behalf of not just ourselves, but one another. Church communities are one of the strongest places where that tradition is upheld, modeled, and honored, and the common life of our parish family here at St A’s is built, year by year, on the pledges we make together.

We’ll have an Ingathering of Pledges on October 23^rd, and hear a bit more about them week by week as we go. Those pledge cards are read confidentially by only three people – the treasurer, the parish administrator, and the rector. One of us will often then work with other parish leaders to share possible connections for Talent pledges in particular – for example, if someone says they love gardening, I’ll certainly let Jim Keepers know! If someone loves people or hospitality, I’ll connect them with Kathy Pospischal and our Parish Life Committee. Talents can be very specific (“I’d like to take pictures at events once a season”) or very general (“I’m a people person – how can I help?”), and we love to spend time reflecting together on how that might translate into a calling!

Time pledges are often more abstract, but sometimes people will write that they pledge time at worship, time for prayer, or time in a specific ministry. I often follow up there, too, if I think there’s some specific calling – “Have you tried reading this book,” or “Have you thought about working with a spiritual director?” or “It sounds like you’d like to be part of a worship ministry?” might all be follow-ups.

Treasure pledges are taken up by our treasurer, Maggie Wellman, who has a great history of confidentiality and care around those. Maggie builds the framework of our budget each year, working with ministry leaders to identify needs, hopes, and “wishes.” We’re proud to be a parish that supports our diocesan Faith-Asking amount (which gives us a pretty incredible infrastructure for everything from the spiritual leadership of our bishop and diocesan staff to very practical things like HR and legal assistance), and to support Outreach partners directly with gifts from our budget each year, including COPE (the Christian Outreach Program of Elkhorn) and Magdalene Omaha (a community of recovery and empowerment for women survivors).

This coming year we anticipate some shifted costs, and there will be a meeting after each service on October 16^th to talk more about that. There are some specific invitations to prayerful consideration in Richard’s letter: For those of us who have been giving to the capital campaign, we’re asking people to consider continuing some portion of what that annual support has been, as part of the annual budget this year – the hope is that this represents a moment for some of our members where our total giving goes down a bit, but the operating budget can receive a larger gift that will help us fund our growing church and current goals and needs. For new members, we’re hoping people who have been giving are able to reflect on finances and make an official financial pledge – this helps us plan our budget much more practically, and is a great part of the strength of our parish. We’ll also be talking to staff and ministries about how to use specific designated funds this coming year to support our work, and thrift and good care are standing values for our parish.

Overall, St A’s is a place that thrives because of our good stewardship, generosity, and care, and our greatest strength really IS the generosity of our people in giving of ourselves and our gifts back to God and each other, for ALL the work and growth that can come from a healthy church family – both for ourselves and for neighbors in our community. May this be a season of good cheer and reflection for you about offering gifts by way of our pledges as we plan for 2023!

God bless,

Fr Ben †