Dear St. Catherine Parish Family,
A few weeks ago, I reported to you that we’ve been making wonderful progress in our parish’s financial stewardship. I was pleased to report that our average weekly offertory has increased from about $34,000 to almost $39,000. This increase has been a great encouragement to me, as it demonstrates the spirit of generosity and gratitude to the Lord that is so evident in our parish.
With a stabilized offertory, I’m hoping we can budget for some much-needed facilities repairs as well as additional resources to support our ministries, particularly our spiritual activities, youth ministry, and religious education. So many amazing things are happening in our parish right now! And as we continue to expand our ministries, I’m hoping that we can continue to grow our offertory giving as well. As I mentioned in my letter a few weeks ago, I’d love to be able to reach the goal of $45,000 per week for our offertory!
How can we make this happen? I ask you please to consider two ways you can respond to our growing needs and expanding programs: first, to make a commitment to regular giving to the parish; and second, to increase your giving level. The easiest way to do both these things is to set up a recurring gift through our online giving service.
Online giving allows you to set up a secure recurring donation via credit card, debit card, or bank draft, so that you don’t have to worry about remembering checks or envelopes. This arrangement is useful as well during the times when you may be away from the parish, especially during the summer months. I myself have set up a recurring monthly gift to the parish, and I intend to increase my gift this year in light of our growing needs. In my report, I also mentioned that our current online giving accounts for about 25% of our offertory giving, and that I would like for us to increase this to 35%.
This weekend we’ll have a special stewardship campaign to promote our online giving service. We’ll have members of our staff and finance council available to assist you in setting up an online giving account after Mass, or you can set up an account at any time by visiting our parish website. You’ll also notice that we’ve placed “I Give Online” cards in the pews. These cards are for parishioners who give online but would still like to place something in the baskets each week as a concrete sign of their stewardship to the parish.
I want to thank all of you who have been so generous to the parish and have responded to my appeals for stewardship thus far. I would ask all of you, particularly if you don’t currently give regularly, to consider making a commitment to give to the needs of our parish. Even if you choose not to use our online giving service, you can certainly give regularly using our envelopes. I pray that the Lord will bless you and your families for your generosity, and that He will continue to build up our parish in fellowship and charity.
