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Make a 2025 Pledge

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If you have already made your 2025 pledge but would like to change it, please contact contact Andrea Miller.

What Is Stewardship?

Stewardship is the belief that everything we have belongs to God and is entrusted into our care.

Our annual stewardship campaign is about more than just money. It's an act of gratitude and a commitment to God’s vision of a more loving, just, and hopeful world. Your pledge ensures that children and youth are nurtured, adults grow in faith through discipleship and relationships with one another, God’s name is praised through word and song, those who hunger are fed, and the hopeless receive hope.

All of that—and so much more—is made possible through our giving to the church.

A Letter from Tom Are Jr.

October 16, 2024

Dear Friend,

A year ago, Carol and I joined your ministry, and it has been an incredible journey. While I may not know Fourth as well as you do, I’ve observed a few things that fill me with hope.

There's a growing spirit of joy. We're putting the challenges of COVID behind us, worship attendance has increased and there is a palpable sense of excitement as you begin the search for your next Pastor.

Your welcoming spirit, dedication to our mission, and abundant generosity make it possible for us to be such a bright Light in the City and beyond. As we enter our season of Stewardship, I want to provide some updates.

While there's much to celebrate, we are facing a significant financial challenge. For some time, our budget deficits have been partially funded by unpredictable, non-recurring bequest dollars. In 2024, those funds amounted to $1.9 million dollars. While we are grateful that we could use those bequests to support deficits in our operating budget, it is not a reliable stream of revenue and not a sustainable solution for our financial challenges. The Session is committed to ending this practice. No additional bequests will be used to support the operating budget. We will align our operating expenses with more reliable sources of income and will achieve this by accomplishing two important tasks.

First, we'll reduce expenses significantly, which will be difficult. You will notice it. I have been with you for less than a year, but I have yet to find anything that you are doing that I would deem unimportant. Everything we do is good, but we cannot afford to continue to do everything. The Long-Range Plan will guide our Session in making necessary cuts and adjustments.

Second, we are asking for a significant increase in your generosity. Carol and I will be increasing our pledge by 15 percent this year and hope you will join us by committing the same. I understand that this is a large request, but the church has never needed your support like it does now. With increased generosity and reduced costs, we can accelerate our path to funding our ministry in a joyful, responsible, and reliable way.

Most importantly, this reduction in costs is a very difficult, but temporary reality. We are not on a downward trajectory. Fourth is blessed with a significant endowment which extends our capacity for our ministry, almost doubling the amount we receive in pledges.

We will be making cuts because we are in a season of necessary pruning, but I believe through continued growth in our worship attendance both in-person and online, combined with your increased generosity, we will soon begin to rebuild, and under the leadership of your next pastor, God will continue to bless your ministry.

Please join me in making a pledge to the 2025 Stewardship Campaign. Of this I am convinced, the days ahead of us matter as much to God as the days behind us. So be joyful.

Faithfully,

Tom Are, Jr.
Interim Pastor

Stewardship Fact Sheet

Stewardship FAQ

Stewardship Sermon Series
The Good Work of Spiritual Formation
The Good Work of Friendship
The Good Work of Generosity

Video Reflections
on Fourth Church as a Place of
Spiritual Formation
Friendship
Mission

For more information about the Stewardship Campaign, contact Andrea Miller, Associate Director of Development (312.640.2576).