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2020 Stewardship Letter #2
Dear FUMCCV Family & Friends,
This year is continuing to be a significant season of transition and change for FUMCCV, and many people around our country. I believe this process is also are preparing us for the new way in which God will continue to use FUMC.CV for His purposes in the future.
If you regularly check our monthly finance report in the Pathway, you already know that our offerings are less than anticipated year to date. To adjust what we planned for 2020 to what the Lord is providing, several adjustments have been made.
First, the leaders of each ministry at FUMCCV have been diligent in delaying or forgoing as much spending as possible. We have been careful to prioritize expenditures and prayerfully consider creative cost-cutting measures. Dave Hall our Chair of Finance has been a faithful and wise coach to our church leaders in this important process.
Secondly, we have secured funds through the Cares Act. Just like Joseph in Genesis 41, we have made sure to store up some funds. These reserves will enable us to flex with the uncertain times. We made some announcements and gave some reports during this process. Giving during August was right at 100 percent of budget; yet we saw another dip that brought us back to deficit in September.
As we plan to take our giving to the next level during our 2021 Stewardship campaign, I’m looking forward to what is to come. As the Lord continues to transform and mature us, I believe that His blessing on FUMCCV and to the world through FUMCCV has just begun. FUMCCV has become refuge to many new online viewers during these uncertain times. With your support we can continue to be so.
Your investment in this kingdom work is so valuable, your gift matters! Your tithes and offerings are impacting real people, solving real problems, making the world a little more like heaven. Enclosed in this letter is our pledge card for 2021 and our narrative budget which outlines what you have done to impact this community and the world. We have also created a pledge form which you may submit online at www.fumccv.org. We encourage you to use this tool.
It is important that we receive your responses timely, please prayerfully consider your commitment in 2021 as this will enable us to determine our impact in the community for the upcoming year. Let us do everything we can to support each other and wonderful work Christ is doing.
Ariana Horcasitas
Dear FUMCCV family, it is with both excitement and sadness that I share with you that my role as Director of Finance will end this Month. I want to thank you for such a wonderful opportunity to work, learn, express my faith and grow with you all. After 5 happy and productive years, I leave with many great memories to cherish for the rest of my life. Just as the feeling of embarking on a new life journey is exciting, leaving all of you is equally disheartening.
I’m leave at peace knowing that my replacement is a blessing to this congregation, and that you have chosen a great candidate to fill my position. It is with this letter that I take the opportunity to introduce you to Brian Cox as new Director of Operations. For those of you who have not been as fortunate to personally know Brian, he joined us in 2018 after retiring from his position of Principle Recreation Manager for the City of Chula Vista in 2014. Brian has been an integral part of our ministry and his contributions to the staff and the congregation specially during the beginning of the pandemic have been nothing short of exceptional. Brian is our current Office Manager, he is a part of the Re-opening task force, and is well acquainted with the church and preschool finances. I have full trust in the great work Brian will continue to do for FUMCCV. Please join me in expressing my congratulations to him.
It has been my great joy to serve each of you and this congregation. I will miss you all, but I know God has great things coming. I ask for continual prayers as our staff members settle into new roles.
Thank you for your support, prayers and encouragement,
Grace and Peace,
Ariana Horcasitas
Charge Conference: November 5, 2020
How can I participate?
• You can participate via Zoom. The meeting ID and password are listed below. For voting purposes, each person should have their own device rather than sharing between two people.
Link: https://zoom.us/j/92877408831?pwd=cUZFbERoNHl6V3NlWkdhaTRtdGJudz09
Zoom Meeting ID: 928 7740 8831
We hope you will join us for this important church event.
2020 Stewardship Letter #1
Fall 2020
Dear FUMCCV Family & Friends,
Greetings in the name of Christ! I pray this letter finds you and your loved one’s doing well during these difficult times. Let me first say how I miss seeing you each and every week on campus for worship and other activities and while I know we are united as the body of Christ, I confess missing our unity as the church.
The words of the Apostle Paul, in his greeting to the Romans, have been on my mind. He says, “For I am longing to see you that I may share with you some spiritual gift to strengthen you – or rather so that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine” (Romans 1:11-12). Paul could be somewhat egotistic and that is reflected in the first half of the statement, his desire to be the encourager. In the second half of the statement he corrects himself, acknowledging that we are all equal encouragers of one another by faith. This is what I miss about being together in church – the opportunity to all equally encourage one another by faith.
These unique times have provided a good opportunity for us to reflect on the nature of the church and the difference between the church and the Body of Christ. If we are the Body of Christ then we believe that we are connected and in fact there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God or the love of one another, not even a global pandemic. This is true because the Body of Christ is a divine institution that God invites us to participate in. The church, on the other hand, is a human institution and we have found that the church can be divided – by a pandemic, by national and denominational politics, by racial unrest, and more. I pray your faith is founded on the Body of Christ and supported by the church rather than the other way around.
FUMCCV is of course a church, but let me assure you the leaders of this church are passionate about living according to God’s invitation for us to be the Body of Christ. An invitation that says everyone is welcome, everyone matters and has a contribution to make, we gather in church to be strengthened, we are sent into the world to live our faith, and though it may seem the world is against us there is actually nothing that can separate us from one another and the love of God. The church is a gathering place but the Body of Christ is the connecting place – let us stay connected.
We are asking you, over the next month, to prayerfully consider your financial giving for 2021. Our collective level of giving will determine the kind of church we are and how close to the Body of Christ we can become. These are difficult and uncertain times to think about financial giving, which means the prayers must be all the more fervent. We are praying for you and we look forward to hearing your prayers and responses.
Blessings,
Rev. Dr. Brian T. Parcel