Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church (Dayton, Ohio)

Stewardship Sunday 2011Message from Tom Retzios, Stewardship Chairman
When I was appointed Stewardship Chairman, I started researching the historical data on the stewardship program of our Annunciation Church. What I found was very interesting. The yearly totals for the last 10 years have basically remained the same - about $300,000. Unfortunately our expenses had increased tremendously. The current budget is $900,000. I also saw that the number of stewards has also remained constant – about 450. What I deduced from these numbers is that our stewardship has stagnated. When I look around me in church what I see is something totally different. I see a vibrant community with a wonderful Catechism school, choir, Greek School, YAL, GOYA, Philoptochos and many other groups. I also see a community which works together to put on a Greek Festival which is a jewel in the Dayton community’s crown. I hear people talk about it all year long. This piqued my curiosity. How could our community excel in one important area, but stagnate in an equally important area. I then embarked on an internet study of other Orthodox communities to see what successes they have had, and how we could strengthen what I perceived as a weakness in our community. What I found is very interesting, and led to the current stewardship campaign.

Stewardship, it turns out, is a multi faceted endeavor. It involves the commitment of Time, Talent and Treasure. As I mentioned earlier, it appears as though we have the talent component mastered as evidenced by our excellent community groups. While focusing on time and treasure, my research led me to the concept of a True Stewardship Parish. This is defined as a parish which pays for all of its ministerial expenses through the contributions of it own members. What a great concept, we pay for all of our important church activities. We pay for the religious education of our children. We pay for our Priest, choir and church staff. We maintain the beauty of God’s house, this beautiful church, in which our Divine Liturgy, baptisms, weddings, and funerals occur.

I also found that many True Stewardship Parishes succeeded by using a program of weekly giving. The Stewards give every week whether or not they attend church. It is similar to the early Christians bringing their offerings to the church at the beginning of the week (Sunday). One of the pitfalls of the previous stewardship campaigns is that members thought of paying in one lump sum. It always seems more daunting thinking of $1,000 versus $20 per week. Becoming a True Stewardship Parish wouldn’t be so difficult for us. If we take our budget for the year which is $900,000, and divided that by the number of stewards, we come up with $1,915. This is $37 dollars per week. I understand that some of us can’t afford this amount, but many more of us can. Regardless of what we can afford we can all increase our contribution no matter what the amount is. Think about it, this $37 is less than eating a meal out once per week. It’s a week’s worth of Starbucks coffee. In my discussions with various parishioners I have heard certain misperceptions. This money is not a gift to the priest, or to the Stewardship chairman, or to the Parish Council. It is thanksgiving to God. I talk about the financial needs of the church, but this giving is independent of these needs. It really does not matter how much money the Church has, or if we think too much is being spent for one particular item. We still need to give to the church through Stewardship. This giving is actually thanksgiving to God. [ repeat ] Remember last week’s Gospel of the ten lepers who were healed, but only one came back to thank God. God heals and helps us all week long. Let’s not be like the nine who didn’t show thanksgiving to God.

The third component of Stewardship is the commitment of time. This means devoting time to God multiple times per day. It means attending the Divine Liturgy and other sacraments frequently. We all know that money pays the bills, but participating in the spiritual aspects of our faith, stores treasure in Heaven. Many of us claim that faith is an important part of our lives, but unfortunately, we are too busy with our day to day activities to even think of God. I know that I am guilty of this. We are running to work and school activities, picking up the kids or dropping them off, going to doctor appointments and meetings. Before we know it our faith takes a back seat. This is why our pledge of time is critical. A sad fact is that a sizable portion of the 470 Stewards do not actively participate in the life of the Church. Increasing our pledge of time is hard, but the more we participate, the easier it gets. The Church fathers were pretty smart. They knew what they were doing when they set up these routines. Little by little, daily prayer, scriptural reading, fasting and following a daily prayer rule become habit. Granted, this is a very simplistic explanation. There is the intervention of the Holy Spirit among other things, but I‘ll leave that for Father to explain. After a little while you crave this interaction with your faith. You want to attend services. You want to pray and fast. Forgive the analogy, but this is similar to playing golf, soccer or for that matter, any activity. The more time play or practice, the better you get, and the more enjoyable it is. The more you love the activity. Let’s face it, you generally get out something what you put in to it.

For Stewardship to succeed, we also must fill the church on Sundays. Christ called us to be evangelists. I find this a very difficult thing to do. What is easier is to go after the “low hanging fruit.” Each of us has family members and friends we can encourage to attend the Divine Liturgy. Mothers and Fathers can encourage children and their families to attend. We can encourage Koumbari, godchildren, brothers and sisters. In this way we can fill our pews every Sunday.

In summary, what this program hopes to accomplish is to make our community a True Stewardship Parish through the generous contribution of our time, talent and treasure, which is facilitated through a pattern of weekly giving.

If anyone has any suggestions or questions, please feel free to contact me.

Thomas L. Retzios
Stewardship Chairman