Stewardship 2026

STEWARDSHIP 2026

Dear St. Stephen’s Community Member,

Having taken many steps together through a season of questions and uncertainty, our St. Stephen’s community now emerges on the cusp of new learning and growth.  It is worth remembering how we conducted that journey.  In the words of the collect we jointly prayed for over a year: “walking together in love with patience and care for one another.”  For me, that phrase calls to mind our young ones heading off to children’s chapel.

While it was not an easy journey, I feel it was a rewarding one, and not just in reaching our destination of welcoming a new rector into our community. We were reminded of the many strengths of our people as we held onto our welcoming nature and maintained a focus on the joy and care that we bring to one another and to the greater community of which we are part.

Advent will bring Carissa Baldwin-McGinnis’s new leadership to us, so we now transition to a new season of building – building to last.  Thus, the Cornerstone.  I hope you will join me in empowering a 2026 in which all aspects of St. Stephen’s can strive upwards.

If you have been pledging, thank you so much for getting us here!  We could not have done it without you.  We hope you will see pledging generously again this year as enabling us to build upward.

If you are new to the community or haven’t pledged before, welcome! We hope to provide insight into how pledging enables St. Stephen’s to accomplish its mission.  There are connections between our pledging, our people, our plans and what you have found in this community. What we each contribute ultimately determines how St. Stephen’s progresses in its core values of Service, Questioning, Relationships, Future, Individuality and Belief.

Our goal is to give our new Rector the financial stability that allows her to focus on engagement and development within and through this community’s many connections.

We will be praying a collect for this season of Stewardship:

O God, our Creator and abundant provider, thank you for guiding us to a rector with whom we can set a new cornerstone, and grant our community generosity in spirit, time, and resources, so that we can grow our relationships and expand our service, reflecting Your love well into the future; in the name of Jesus Christ who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

With this in mind and spirit, we hope you will prayerfully consider pledging to St. Stephen’s.

In gratitude,

Michael Hawes, Chair, 2026 St. Stephen’s Stewardship Committee