Dear Friends,

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! We write to you in follow-up to Morgan’s challenging sermon from Sunday, October 9, and the beginning of our 2012 Stewardship season.

Members of your Good Shepherd Stewardship Team – this year comprising more than 90 parishioners – have made their commitment to be 2012’s first pledgers, and we ask you to tithe toward the tithe, increasing your 2011 pledge by 10%. If you did not pledge this year, we ask that you become a part of our goal to increase the number of Good Shepherd’s pledging households, also by 10%.

In 2011 we have leveraged our current infrastructure to over-perform for a season, trusting that our community would respond with the necessary resources to sustain our growth. To meet that challenge, we must increase our 2012 annual budget fully 10% in order to hire:

• A coordinator of senior ministries
• A youth minister
• A communications professional & additional administrative personnel

Moreover, in 2012, we will fund our Tuesday Morning Outreach program through our operating funds. We also hope to add a second weekly outreach program that will serve underprivileged mothers and their infant children.

As you consider how God calls you to Deeper Waters in your Stewardship, we offer you the enclosed booklet of reflections about who Good Shepherd is and how God challenges us to be grateful, generous, and kind. As Morgan named on Sunday, “the standard of our giving should reflect the standard of our living.” We recognize God has blessed us with great gifts, and we ask you to join us in offering them for the good of God’s Kingdom.

To pledge, simply return your pledge card to the church office either by hand or mail, or by dropping it into the offertory plate during any Sunday or weekday service or pledge online.

On All Saints Sunday, November 6, our parish-wide Stewardship effort will conclude, and we will invite everyone to process their pledges to the altar during worship, asking for God’s blessing to be with us and upon the promises we will have made. If you pledge in advance of that date (and we encourage you to do so), your pledge card will be in the narthex, the foyer of the church, in a sealed envelope with your name on it, so that you, too, can join in the procession on that special day.

Godspeed,
Your Good Shepherd Stewardship Team Captains

Endowment Fund

If you would like to give the church a gift that continues to increase, please consider the Endowment Fund. The principal is invested, and one-half the income is spent for parish programs and activities while the other half is invested to make the corpus of the fund grow.

You may honor or memorialize someone or simply make a donation in thanksgiving by printing this form and making a check payable to Good Shepherd Memorial Endowment Fund in any amount you choose and sending it to:

The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd
Endowment Fund
P. O. Box 5176
Austin, TX 78763