We are a small Episcopal Church on the banks of the Rappahannock in Port Royal, Virginia. We acknowledge that we gather on the traditional land of the first people of Port Royal, the Nandtaughtacund, and we respect and honor with gratitude the land itself, the legacy of the ancestors, and the life of the Rappahannock Tribe. Our mission statement is to do God’s Will in all that we do.

Stewardship

Connecting our Stewardship Campaign to the Season of Creation

Language from the Bible supports both the Season of Creation and our pledge campaign using the language of – planting, growth, production of fruit, and feeding.

Here’s some of our language and imagery, linking these practices, both ancient and continuing, with our common life at St. Peter’s:

  • Plant: We begin with the seeds: Worship and prayer, baptism, evangelism, welcoming, pastoral care
  • And the seeds soon grow: Education, communications, upkeep of buildings and grounds
  • And produce fruit: Fellowship, belonging, new members, confirmation, marriages
  • To feed people who are hungry in body and spirit: Village Harvest, Christma
  • And our roots are deep: Tradition, reconciliation…
  • Settled into the ground of our being: Jesus Christ
  • Watered by the vows of the Baptismal Covenant – to continue in worship, repent and return, respect the dignity of others.
  • Jesus said, “I am the vine, You are the branches…bear much fruit.”
  • All of this depends on your gifts, regular income that provides the rector and staff; that lights, heats, and cools our buildings, that provides materials for worship, for service, for outreach.

2023 Highlights at St. Peter’s

This is a topical summary. We have another page that is a chronological listing of 2023 events with table of contents with links to the events.

The highlights can be grouped as follows:

A. New ministry
God’s Garden
Chancellors Village
Advent Worskhop

B. New expressions in ministry
Stewardship tree
Lent -Stations of the Cross in the graveyard and more services

C. Expanded and revised ministries
Mission trip to Jamaica
Anniversary Village Harvest Food Ministry
Sacred Ground revised
ECM (Episcopal Church Men) end of year expanded donations and use of an art auction.
Community – Prayer service, Outside Christmas pageant, Work with community organizations
Key parishioner volunteering
ECW (Episcopal Church Women) projects

D. Music provided new delights
Easter, the summer and Christmas
Blue grass concert

E. Losses connected with two historic trees and two heating systems.

1. New ministry – God’s Garden

A new ministry debuted Sept 17, 2023. God’s Garden for 5 to 9 year olds began with 4 children and two experienced teachers, Elizabeth Heimbach, the originator of the class and Jan Saylor.

One of the first activities was to “God’s Garden” which explored what it meant to be a saint, today (Oct. 1, 2023) for St. Francis Day on Oct. 4. As an example they told the story of St. Francis taming the Wolf of Gubbio. Then, they made Pet blessings with treats to give out in church to make pets happy on St. Francis Day, Oct. 4.

2. Expanded ministry in Jamaica

Even before the mission began, we hosted Annette Steele, principal of Victoria Primary School who enjoyed a full day at St. Peter’s on Sun, Aug. 13. She addressed the church at announcements about our joint mission to help the students in her elementary school get ready for school in Sept, both in 2021 and 2023. She explained how much it meant to the students and her community.

After the service, she enjoyed St. Peter’s hospitality at a luncheon and met our parishioners and guests.

The group of 3 on the mission team distributed our donations in Jamaica on Aug. 26

We not only brought the usual school supplies but added 6 tablets. Separately, 7 used computers were donated to a school that had never had a computer.  

There were different ways of distributing the items.  There were contests for tablets and food baskets won by answering questions. Certificates given out based on merit overall and in areas like math. A number of students won $1,000 Jamaican dollars for math competency. Teachers were not forgotten – 2 footballs were given out to the coach!

3. Village Harvest ended its 9th year and began its 10th year in August, 2023 and ended the year serving the most people since 2019.

For the year, we recovered from a slow 1st quarter, 2023 and ended the year serving 1,063 people compared to 1,051 in 2022. It was the best yearly total since 2019.

Unfortunately, the same trend overall wasn’t present with food. Food increased from 2021 to 2022 (14,303 to 15,302 pounds) but dipped to 13,859 pounds in 2023. The first quarter was the problem. We had 2,913 pounds in that quarter compared over 4,000 for 2022 and 2021.

As a result, pounds provided per individual dropped from 14.56 in 2022 to 13.04. In 2021, it was in the same range at 14.32. Overall, pounds per individual are substantially higher since 2019 than in earlier periods.

The 2023 collection on Giving Tuesday, Nov 28 of $1,205 was the highest Giving Tuesday figure since 2019 and provides over 5 months of support for purchasing food for 2024

4. Sacred Ground revised their scholarship program

Representatives from Sacred Ground met with Jessica Thompson, Executive Director of the Germanna Educational Foundation, for lunch at Castiglias in Fredericksburg on Oct. 10, 2023.  The goal was to determine how we could move forward with a new focus on our scholarships for students.

Sacred Ground voted unanimously by email in early December to fund the recommendation forwarded by Jessica Thompson at Germanna for scholarships for students entering the trades. Each student is “in financial need and from underserved populations.” The $2,700 would be split equally to pay for their training.

Each student owes approximately $1,500 for the classes to complete the training. We will pay for the additional expense for each student through additional scholarship funds

They also toured Patawomeck Village in November. The goal of the visit was to understand their history and culture as well as our role

Earlier, the Sacred Ground group had the pleasure of meeting with Alanna Gray (beside Catherine), and her mother and grandmother (opposite Alanna) at Cuppa Cheer in February

Read more

Stewardship is….

“When I fill out my pledge card this year, I’m going to try to remember that all that I have is a gift—as Richard Rohr says, “It’s all a gift!” –and that I can share my financial gifts freely with not only St Peter’s, but with many other groups as well, the groups that are doing what I would consider to be God’s work out in the world.”

Stewardship is … Everything I do after I say, “I believe.” Stewardship is our thankful and intentional response to the question, “What is God calling me to do with the gifts God has entrusted to me?”

Why pledge ? The pledges are the major way to support what St. Peter’s values – food distribution and meals in our community, education, outreach to those in need, Christian education and fellowship for all.

We are stewards, caretakers of God’s gifts. Everything we have was a gift from God, and God asks us to use it all for God’s purposes. Generosity flows naturally out of our gratitude for the gift of love, family, and life itself.

Read more

5 Principles of Stewardship

Here are some thoughts on giving and stewardship from From The Evangelist, Newsletter-letter of St. Mark’s Cathedral Shreveport, Louisiana, Nov. 2021

  • God owns everything. Everything means everything. The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it (Ps. 24:1) The Genesis creation record makes it clear that God is the sovereign Creator who owns and reigns over the earth. It is also clear that God appointed man to manage this creation (Gen. 2:15).

  • The people of God are God’s management company. If you are a Christian, remember that being part of God’s household gives you responsibilities to work for the house of God. You enter into a contract with God that requires you to be a steward of your part of his creation. It is a further obligation that although you are free to make your own choices, the choices you make must give God glory.

  • Stewardship is responsibility with accountability. God did not create a people to be servants but to be relatives, sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth (Is. 43:6). He receives little glory from having slaves; he receives tremendous glory from people who willingly serve him as a manifestation of their relationship to him. God wants to know if you truly love him, and he intends to test that love by seeing how you respond to the temptation of money.

  • Stewardship demands a commitment to others. It is a response to God’s goodness to you. Stewardship is not doing something for God with your money, but doing something for others with his money. You act on God’s behalf and in his name. The apostle Paul described himself as a slave to everyone (1 Car. 9:19) and always seeking the good of them. (1 Car. 10:24, 33). Further he told us to look not only to our own interest, but also the interests of others (Phil. 2:4). Your attitude, Paul wrote, should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness (Phil. 2:5-7). Stewardship is both an expression of your love for God and the realization of that love in your relationships to others.

  • Stewardship has eternal consequences. Underlying most of Jesus’ instruction is the assumption that your life on earth will prepare you for your future in heaven. Paul explained to the Philippian believers, I am [not] looking for a gift, but I am looking for what may be credited to your [future, heavenly] account (Phil. 4:17). Stewardship builds heavenly treasure by transferring wealth from your bank account to your heavenly account. Because God is eternal, he operates in an eternal time frame. Likewise, the actions of God’s stewards will have eternal consequences

Stewardship FAQ

Frequently asked questions about Stewardship at St. Peter’s

What is stewardship?

Stewardship is an expression of gratitude and thankfulness for the blessings of life that come from God. It is love shared and love returned. A life lived in gratitude is a life lived in love

Why does St. Peter’s call stewardship a spiritual practice?

Any spiritual practice is based on faith – faith that the act repeated regularly will increase our awareness of the presence of God and will gradually remove from our lives walls we erect that block God’s grace.

Spiritual practices include worship, prayer, silence and meditation, contemplation, reading scripture, and giving.

Giving (financial stewardship, in our focus here) has numerous spiritual benefits. Here are just three: First, stewardship reduces our attachment to things material. We learn that by giving away something we “have” really does not diminish us at all. Our needs continue to be met by God. Second, giving chips away at our belief in the concept of “mine” and “yours”. Giving helps us better experience truth that we are indeed one in spirit. And finally, in some mysterious way, our willingness to give determines our willingness to receive. No doubt all of us know someone who would never give anything to someone else and, in turn, would never accept a gift. We must be willing to give in order to be open to receiving. And God is giving to us every moment of the day. Our willingness to give enhances our ability to accept God’s gifts.

Is my stewardship defined only by the money I give to the church? Absolutely not. Time and service given to others is a critical component of stewardship. Our church can’t function without these gifts of time and service.

Why is making a pledge important? Pledges have two purposes. One is between you and God.  Pledging yourself to any spiritual practice increases the likelihood you will actually do it. In the fall each year we ask you to commit to the practice of giving. We’re most concerned with your commitment to this practice, and less concerned with how much you give.   For many of us, a pledge to give money to the church is a way that we say thanks to God and practice our faith.

Second, the vestry does its best to operate the church on a sound financial basis, and having a good handle of how much people plan to give in the coming year enhances the vestry’s ability to plan responsibly.   

What percent of the church’s annual budget is supported by pledges? About 83%. The rest of the operating budget is supported by cash offerings and donations,. It’s simple – our programs depend on pledge support.

What happens if I make a pledge and find I cannot fulfill it? Your pledge is not a contract. It is a spiritual commitment. You need to inform the treasurer if you cannot meet or to need to adjust your pledge so that we can make adjustments to operations as needed.

How much should I give? Am I expected to tithe? If you asked ten different members of the church this question you would likely get ten different answers. We encourage you to give a gift that is meaningful. For someone like Bill and Melinda Gates, who could likely live an extravagant lifestyle on 1% of their income, a tithe of 10% of their income may or may not be meaningful. To the contrary, a single parent with several children in college who has a budget down to the last dollar, a pledge of one-tenth of one-percent may be meaningful. To quote the lyrics from the song “One” by U2 (which started as a Christian rock band), “We’re one, but we’re not the same, we get to carry each other, carry each other”. If we can all give a gift that is meaningful to us, we will be able to reach our goals.

What Does Ministry Look Like ?

This is a PowerPoint comprising a list and description of St. Peter’s ministries under four headings – internal, local partners, state and national partners and international partners. The internal are distinguished by parishioner involvement and are generally active yearly. The others may not be active every year.

Many of these ministries represent the day to day work of the church, both outreach into the world and inreach for those within the church. The church is more than just Sunday and the St. Peter’s building but is working in the world! They involve the both the clergy and parishioners in the church as well as others. Many of these ministries are historic (Bible Study is 20 years old) but some, like Sacred Ground were created in the last five years.

To see a full screen version, press right button in the bottom windows   to open in a new window