Dear Lydians,<\/p>\n
A little over a year ago St. Lydia\u2019s was little more than an idea.\u00a0 We started our church from scratch: no budget, no staff, just a home cooked meal, and a table in a congregants\u2019 dining room, and a bunch of generous people.\u00a0 It\u2019s been a whole mess of wonderful people giving what they can that\u2019s added up to the budget that keeps our church growing.<\/p>\n
Giving is a spiritual practice.\u00a0 We talk a lot at St. Lydia\u2019s about how practice shapes our faith.\u00a0 It\u2019s what we do<\/em> that transforms us bit by bit into new people.\u00a0 The act of giving generously and regularly helps us live lives that are characterized not by clenched hands, but open ones.<\/p>\n A practice of giving also helps us keep our eyes on the prize, as the old spiritual says.\u00a0 Jesus talked a lot about possessions and money getting in the way of a relationship with God.\u00a0 Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also <\/em>(Matthew 6:21).\u00a0 Giving keeps our hearts and minds turned toward God.<\/p>\n Our budget for the 2010-2011 program year is $31,624, an increase of $8,500 from last year\u2019s budget.\u00a0 This increased budget will ensure we have funding for our weekly meal, publicity, and program supplies.\u00a0 We intend to put more of our resources toward facebook ads, as well as increase the salary of our Community Coordinator.<\/p>\n I invite you to take some time this week to consider making a generous and regular financial contribution to St. Lydia\u2019s.\u00a0 What might you offer each week or each month?\u00a0 The practice of giving consistently will make a huge difference in supporting the work of the church we\u2019re building together.\u00a0 You can fill out a financial commitment sheet at St. Lydia\u2019s on Sunday.\u00a0 The sheet will also be available in the weekly update during the month of September.\u00a0 Once you\u2019ve made your financial commitment for the 2010-2011 program year, it\u2019s easy to give what you\u2019ve committed by writing a check or giving online at our website.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an honor to work with each of you in building St. Lydia\u2019s.<\/p>\n -Emily<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Lydians, A little over a year ago St. Lydia\u2019s was little more than an idea.\u00a0 We started our church from scratch: no budget, no staff, just a home cooked meal, and a table in a congregants\u2019 dining room, and a bunch of generous people.\u00a0 It\u2019s been a whole mess of wonderful people giving what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":165,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions\/165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}