Dear One’s of St. C’s, 

We have a lot going on this over the next week at St. C’s!  This Sunday is our pledge ingathering.  We hope that you will receive your pledge card along with a letter from Carmen Olfert, our Senior Warden, either today or tomorrow.  Alissa and I hope that you will spend sometime prayerfully considering your pledge for 2023.  For those of you who pledging is a new concept, a pledge is simply an estimate of what you feel you can give financially to St. Columba’s in 2023.  This helps us to plan a budget and know how we can staff the church, what special events can happen, and how we will steward our building in 2023.  A budget is always a plan and not guarantee.  Unexpected things can happen, as we all know living through a pandemic, we understand that plans can change.  But our hopes are that this can be a dreaming time for you and for our church.  A time when we dream about what we hope for our church in 2023 and how we as a community hope to be a part making those dreams a reality.  

There is no pledge that is too small or too big.  Our pledge is a reminder that we only can do this together and no one is in this alone.  We hope that you will be part of the financial life and health at St. Columba’s!  If you have more questions on the budget we will have a Town Hall to discuss it after the 11am service on Nov. 13th.  A draft budget will be available prior to that meeting. 

For our ingathering Sunday we will have a special coffee hour to really take time to look around and enjoy this beautiful community and all it brings to our lives and hopefully to our neighbors lives as well.  Traditionally, we also collect bottles of Ruby Port Wine on this Sunday.  This is the wine we use during the  Eucharist throughout the year.  Please, consider bringing a bottle this Sunday with your pledge card!

This coming Sunday also marks the beginning of our community marking AllHallowsTide.  This very special three days in our church calendar where we examine our relationship with death, remember the saints of the church, and the saints in our lives. We hope you will join us for our All Hallow’s Eve Service & Party (Oct. 30th), our All Soul’s Day Service (Nov. 2nd) and our All Soul’s & Saint’s Day Service (Nov. 6th). For more details about these services please check the e-news or our website. 

with hope, 

Meghan

PS If you want to hear more about AllHallowTide and you missed my "from the associate vicar" from earlier in the month you can listen to it on our podcast "St. Columba's Kent, WA Sermons and More" or by clicking below.