Annual Report of the Stewardship Ministry 2023

Annual Report of the Stewardship Ministry 2023

The Stewardship Ministry is tasked with supporting the congregation by ensuring that the congregation is connected to the life of the church. Through the church’s website at https://www.oldtownucc.org, we keep everyone connected with Pastor Kelly’s message each week. Worship bulletins are posted online every Sunday before worship, and notes from Pastor Kelly’s sermons are posted shortly afterward. We also keep the church’s calendar up to date, letting everyone know what’s happening at Oldtown.

We do our best to communicate the church’s finances in an easy-to-understand way. Each week, through the Stewardship Corner in our worship bulletins. We report on our congregation’s generous giving, which is our largest source of income. Every month, we also report an overview of the church’s income and expenses for the month and give an idea of how this compares to our annual budget.

This year, we were fortunate to receive several very generous gifts from members and families in our congregation, so much so that though we entered the year with a deficit budget, our income well exceeded our expenses. Thanks to the blessings of a generous congregation and the work of all of us to identify places where we can keep our expenses low, we are happy to report that our church is in a stable financial position this year.

Church finances can be complicated, and if any questions arise or if anyone is curious to learn more about them, the stewardship ministry is available to help. Still, stewardship is about much more than finances. We also do our best to connect folks in the congregation with our various different ministries according to their interests and passions.

As a congregational church, nothing happens at Oldtown unless we make it happen, and there are opportunities for everyone to help, whatever your passions and interests may be.

This year, we hope to focus on developing the vision and mission of the church, with the help from everyone in the congregation. Working with Pastor Kelly and with input from the entire congregation, we’ll try to answer questions about WHO we are at Oldtown, WHAT our goals and aspirations are as a congregation, and WHY we do what we do, whatever it is we do, and wherever we do it.

The life and faith of the Oldtown Church have never been better, and we invite everyone to join us and work together to keep Oldtown going strong for another three hundred years to come!

~ Grace and Peace, Jim Fennell
~ Oldtown Stewardship Ministry