We celebrate our connections to the UU Church of Bloomington through our renewed commitment to its financial health and well-being. Our campaign is already well underway as we celebrate all the different ways "We are" together and engage in "open pledging" as the spirit of generosity moves us.
I want to note what a truly generous people we are. We are generous of spirit, as we strive to be open minded and generous in our interpretation of perspectives and ideas different from our own. We are generous with our time, through the countless volunteer hours both in building our own community, and changing the world
beyond. We are generous with our talents, as we sing, speak, craft, cook, clean, and care. And we are generous with ourselves, making time to come together in community and renew.
We are also generous with our resources, and we make special celebration of that in the annual pledge campaign. Each year, the church finance committee takes the results of our annual pledge campaign and crafts the very best budget they can, to help us pursue our mission and live our shared our values. Pledges are vital to this process.
We continue to be amazed that our very own UUCB is actually in the top 3% of all UU churches in terms of attendance and in the top 5% for overall membership in Unitarian Universalist congregations nationwide. While a few years ago our budget was only in the top 10%, we are pleased that our increased resources devoted to staff and ministers have raised our budget to the top 7%. But we still serve many more individuals than those who support us, so we're trying to widen our circle of contributors. Please make your pledge by April 3.
Make your pledge of financial support in an amount you feel good about in your current circumstances. There is still not a chart that will ever be as useful as the encouragement from past President, the late Dan Quilter, when he told us to "give until it feels good." We sincerely believe that the act
of reflecting and pledging in gratitude and love is powerful, and should feel good. If you have never pledged before, let this be the year!
You should have recently received your pledge statement for the current year, which shows your pledge for 2015-16. Our new fiscal year begins on July 1st, 2016. The pledge we are asking for at this time is the amount you believe you can contribute from July 1st, 2016 to June 30th, 2017.
If you need a reminder about what you pledged for the current year, contact church administrator Carol Marks (
admin@uubloomington.org) If you would like to discuss your pledge or stewardship more generally, please drop me a line. I am very happy to talk.
In gratitude,
Drew Schrader
Stewardship Chair
812.361.7117
