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Stewardship

We ask for your participation in Good Shepherd’s stewardship campaign: Reaching Beyond Ourselves. Your financial pledge is crucial support for our parish and the ministries that we share!

Reaching Beyond Ourselves calls us to increase our impact in the lives we serve beyond our own; to build relationships beyond Good Shepherd with the greater Austin community; and to support connections between those inside and those beyond our parish family. We believe that reaching others in love is God’s call to our parish.

Giving: A Spiritual Exercise
A financial pledge to the church is an expression of faith. God invites us to give sacrificially to increase the gift of faith in the hearts of those around us. In committing our financial resources, we join together to fund the programs and direction that God has placed on our hearts. Seeing the sum of our generosity through our stewardship campaign reminds us that together we have a tremendous impact in the lives we touch.

Supporting: What Stewardship Dollars Do

  • Pledges make up more than 80 percent of the parish budget.
  • Pledges support all our ministry groups: liturgy, outreach, community building, children and youth, pastoral care, and faith formation.
  • Pledges help Good Shepherd attract and retain the talented staff who support the programs that are so meaningful to us.

Growing: A Result of Your Support
One result of your dedicated support has been incredible growth: Good Shepherd grew by 161 new members in 2023.

Like you, our parish is managing the effects of rising fixed costs including utilities, insurance, interest rates and staffing. We have the added cost, and related benefit, of strengthened campus security and an additional staff person to better serve the 1400 children and youth of the parish.  We are also affected by the expiration of pandemic-related financial assistance. As a result, we need approximately 9% more in pledges to fund our ministries in 2024.

It is important to note that 509 of our 1325 households, or 38%, made a financial pledge to Good Shepherd for 2023. We believe that greater participation not only distributes the burden of funding our budget, but also demonstrates that our ministries positively impact our entire congregation. Our goal is to reach 80% pledge participation for 2024.

We hope you will prayerfully reflect on your intention to pledge and consider how your faith is strengthened through giving. We thank you wholeheartedly for your generous participation and your prayers for Good Shepherd. You are so very important to the life we share together – and to our ability to reach beyond ourselves to share God’s love with others.

God’s peace,

John Pitts and Ruth Whitehurst
Campaign Co-Chairs

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