Stewardship Pledge Dedication Sunday
This Sunday is Stewardship Pledge Dedication Sunday!
So, what is a Stewardship Pledge? To start with, Stewardship is our caretaking, our custodianship, our trusteeship of all that God has given us – time, talent, and treasure. In our church we are all invited to make an annual pledge, indicating how we plan to share our stewardship in the life of the church. So we pledge money, and time, and talent. Julie Fukuda’s stewardship has included creating a beautiful banner for our theme: “Do it all for the glory of God” from 1 Corinthians 10:31.
What is a pledge? It is a statement of intention to share. It can be a Yen or Dollar amount. It can be an amount of time. It can be a particular ministry that you want to commit to. A pledge is not a binding contract and you can adjust your pledge up or down during the year according to your circumstances and how God leads and provides.
It is easy to make a pledge online. Go to www.tokyounion.org and select “Give” in the upper right hand corner. There you will see two ways to pledge – “Give Financially” and “Give Your Time” – each of them is important. Please complete both the “Financial Pledge” and “Time & Talent Pledge” forms .
Thank you for trying this new practice. This is our first year to make pledges all online. In this time of pandemic, this is our accommodation for this year.
NEWS FLASH! Starting Sunday, Oct. 31, we will re-open the 11 am service for In-Sanctuary worship! We will do it carefully and safely, but we are doing it! I am so excited about this! I have been waiting achingly, longingly for this.
In the past we have brought our pledges to the sanctuary on paper pledge forms, then we placed them in the special brass offering plate discovered in the ashes of the church by Rev. & Mrs. Bruner after the firebombing of Tokyo that destroyed the TUC building in 1945. This plate is the only item we have from TUC prior to World War II. Our tradition of using this plate for gathering pledges is interrupted this year.
But we ask you to participate in this ritual at home. Write your intentions on a piece of paper that is just for you and God. (I have used a piece of Origami paper.) Then fold the paper and place it in a dish of your choice – something that symbolizes for you your daily bread. On Sunday, instead of walking forward to the brass plate, we can each in our own place put our paper in our own dish.
Then we ask you to take a picture of your paper in your dish and email the picture to us. Then we will create a collage of all our dishes and papers, which we can share online and in our Koinonia Magazine. You may recall how we did this last year with our home communion settings.
So please prepare for Stewardship Pledge Dedication Sunday.
1) Make your pledge ONLINE this year, and
2) Prepare your pledge paper and dish and photo so we can share them all with each other.
Whatever you do, do it ALL to the Glory of God!
Warmly in Christ,
Steve Yamaguchi