Thank You!
My mother raised me to say "thank you" and tried to teach me to write thank you notes as a habit of being well-mannered and polite. As I have aged and now as I attempt to raise my own children I am trying to raise them not only to say "thank you" but also to be thankful. Being thankful, or grateful, is a posture that celebrates the joy and gifts of each day, each encounter, and each person whom I meet and it is connected to the spiritual habit of giving thanks to God. Brother David Steindl-Rast is a Dominican religious who has done pioneering work on the spirituality of gratitude. He writes: "It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful."
As we conclude our public phase of our stewardship campaign by saying "thank you" we have much for which to be joyful. This year we celebrate a historic record level of support pledged to St. John's.
This year we have raised pledged income to St. John's of $446,601 up from previous pledged income of nearly $260,000. More details will follow.
This is no small accomplishment. This support will allow us to be more confident and sure footed in our planning for next year and moves us towards our goal of being deficit neutral by the year 2020. Of course, we would welcome new pledges of support but, today, we thank you and we thank God for the amazing generosity of this congregation and its response to our Vision 2020 effort.
"Glory to God whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine" (Ephesians 3:20) and thank you to all those who have made a commitment of support to St. John's.
The Rev. Gideon L. K. Pollach
Rector