This year’s stewardship theme is Bowling for Binkley
Dear Binkleyites,
Building on our Olympic Ministry fair in October, this year’s stewardship theme is Bowling for Binkley. Some of you may recall the Bowling for Dollars TV show. We are bowling for dollars for Binkley. The book, Bowling Alone, is a five hundred-page tome describing how our social capital, a fancy name for community contributions to the common weal, has ebbed over the past fifty years. Bowling is an example since bowling leagues and the associated camaraderie reached an apex in the mid-60s and have been declining ever since. Church attendance provides a similar data point.
Bowling Alone, written by Harvard professor Robert Putnam, has one chart that stands out. The x-axis is social capital per state and the y-axis is “I’d do better than average in a fist fight.” I don’t want to mention names, but you can find West Virginia and Louisiana in the upper left corner of the chart.
Yes, it’s time to pray, pledge and plan to support. As stewardship chair, I need to add plead to the top of my to do list, and this letter has been crafted to get the ball rolling (that’s right, the bowling ball!)
So many good things happen at and because of Binkley that creating an accurate list is challenging. The Ministry Fair highlighted a blizzard of such Christian events and activities. Among the three Ts, time, talent, and treasure, my task is to focus on treasure, because all of our impactful activities at Binkley are built on the financial foundation of our church: our annual operating budget. We need your ongoing pledges and support to maintain our Binkley activities, all of them. Simply stated, we have bills to pay, and we will use your generous gifts to Binkley to cover our monthly costs. With our operating budget in good shape, we can use funds for all the promising programs currently underway and ones we hope to fund.
Binkley is a rich source of social capital, creating community and outreach for so many people, members and others. Please prayerfully consider your pledge amount. Pledges are an essential tool for the church to use at the outset of the budgeting process. Our pledges support a broadly based, thriving ministry at Binkley.
Joe Templeton for the Stewardship Committee