Greetings Glen Mar,

At the Stewardship Committee’s most recent meeting on July 15, Bob Henry reported that we’ve now received 186 pledges since Commitment Sunday, June 8, for a total of $1,018,368 toward our $1.6 million general fund campaign goal. Thank you all very much! Your generous support helps Glen Mar continue to make a difference in our worship, discipleship, and service.

Additionally, with 64 percent of the goal now accounted for, pledged gifts make a difference in Glen Mar’s ability to plan how we pursue our mission. For comparison, we ended last year’s campaign with pledges accounting for 62 percent of our $1.6M goal, so eclipsing that year-end mark (with 10 months to go in the current campaign) is amazing. However, prior to the pandemic, Bob reports we typically saw pledges accounting for 85 to 90 percent of our annual general fund campaigns, which is not unusual, as most churches have seen these same patterns and trends.

To be clear, all gifts of any kind are always welcome and most appreciated. But as you might imagine, the Stewardship Committee has been mulling if and how we might grow pledging a bit more. To this end, we were all intrigued by an offer from new Pastor Chris Dembeck, who joined us for the first time.

“You know, I’d eat a ghost pepper hot wing in public if it would add a little fun to a campaign [for pledging] within the general fund campaign,” said Pastor Chris, who drew inspiration from Julie Metakes’ ice bucket plunge if Vacation Bible School kids and volunteers could raise $1,500 for World Vision (see the July 12 worship recording at 16:17 for the video evidence). “Yes, we’re blessed to be a blessing, but we should also find ways to celebrate key milestones in the life of the church.”

One such milestone will be our last payment on the smaller mortgage loan this year that currently is at $56K. There’s even been talk of having a mortgage note burning when we do so later this year. So, with Pastor Chris’ gastronomical offer in mind, we all agreed that if we could reach 70 percent of the $1.6M goal in pledged gifts by November 1, we could really heat things up. Who knows, maybe George Dohner and crew could whip up a special batch of “hotter than thou” wings for Pastor Chris.

How about it, Glen Mar, wanna see the new guy sweat – and smile – all at once? 😉 If so, you can make a non-binding, but helpful pledge (aka “estimate of giving”) in Realm or on the Giving site.

Best,

John Fritz & Mark Kohler,
Co-chairs

Stewardship Committee