There are great signs of hope all around us. Today we instituted a new president, and regardless of politics, I am looking forward to a less divided and more optimistic national dialogue. The coronavirus vaccines are providing some respite to many communities and people who have until now felt quite fearful of the future. A great many of our parishioners have received at least one doze of the immunization and it will just be a matter of time before all of us get these life-saving shots. Many of our beloved parishioners who were infected with COVID-19 have recovered fully and are now testing negative. And we are approaching our Annual Meeting this coming Sunday with a growth budget that was just approved by vestry last night.
There is still great room for prayer for those who are ill, including our beloved Mitch LeJeune who is currently hospitalized. We pray that the healing power of Jesus may act through our medical personnel to return Mitch back to us healed and restored. This issue of concern notwithstanding, there is pronounced optimism among many of our parishioners. God is in control of our destiny and I believe we will all be together very soon. I cannot wait until I do meet many of those I have not seen in Zoom or in our limited church services. I support your decision to stay away until the vaccines are more widely distributed. This is a cautious and smart decision, but I do believe the end is in sight.
We were able to pass a budget with small deficit thanks to the generosity of our parishioners. We are just 12 pledges away from 2020 pledge levels, and I believe this is a great miracle once you take into account the pandemic’s disruption to the economy: Unemployment is high, job markets are depressed, and there are segments of the economy that will take many years to recover fully. As you will hear at our Annual Meeting, we were able to bridge the deficit of these pledgers because of 2019 and 2020 end of year surpluses and the PPP loan provided by the government a few months back. Thank you all who pledged generously to our 2021 budget. Your love makes all the difference.
How is our 2021 budget a “growth budget”? Well, for starters, we budgeted money for the start of Invite/Welcome/Connect. This is an evangelism ministry that has produced great results across the nation, and churches who implement the model well experience considerable growth. We will give you more information about this new ministry soon. Second, the budget contains a “Curate.” We have applied to the Diocesan Curacy Program and are hoping we will be assigned a seminarian right out of school who will be ordained here at Saint Dunstan’s and who will be able to provide great assistance to us. There is no guarantee that we will get a curate because there are more churches applying than curates looking for placement, but we remain optimistic. Pray that we may be chosen as a placement. Third, we have decided to grow our outreach efforts in 2021. At the fourth quarter of last year, the Vestry decided to approve a 1%-of-budget support of Seminary of the Southwest. I chose this seminary because of its diocesan affiliation. I have a profound interest in continuing a 13-year tradition of sponsoring seminarians for ordained ministry. My former church and I sponsored seven candidates for ordination in the 11 years I served as their rector. This $10,000 or so annual contribution is the start of what I hope will be a very fruitful relationship.
Our budget also invests considerably in our human resource assets. We will add a front office position to our roster, which will also provide administrative support to our Music Ministry. We have revised our employee’s job descriptions making sure we have the right people, doing the right jobs, at the right level of compensation. The exercise allowed us the opportunity to remove clerical functions that had been added into people’s jobs unnecessarily over the years. We placed these duties in the new person’s job description, allowing our staff to spend their valuable time helping us grow the church and not chasing unnecessary paperwork. Additionally, we have chosen to hire a “Technologist” for a few hours a month to provide us technical assistance during live-streamed services. Lastly, we left some money in a “Per-Diem Clergy” line to use in case we are not blessed with a Curate. We will use this money to hire clergy to fill in for the Rector as needed.
Please continue to pray for the success of our ministries and programs. I am very excited about our future and I remain very grateful for your support.
Blessings,
Fr. Roman+
