2020 End of Year Giving Update

Dear Members and Friends,

It’s hard to believe that we are coming to the close of another year. This time last year our favorite topics of conversation were still what to do with our children’s Halloween candy and our plans for the upcoming holidays. What a difference a year makes! I don’t think any of us will ever be able to forget the challenges that arose during the year 2020. In March, of course, our country began to navigate COVID-19, a new coronavirus for which there was no vaccine. Currently, just under 250,000 Americans have lost their lives to this virus. No one has been untouched. Lockdowns, masks, electronic meetings and social distancing have all become part of our daily conversation.

Additionally, 2020 saw our nation revisit longstanding racial tensions, witness violence in several major cities, and navigate what was probably the most acrimonious presidential election cycle in memory if not history. Not to be left out either, 2020 also saw a record setting year for hurricanes in the Atlantic basin from which tens of thousands of Gulf Coast residents are still recovering. What didn’t happen in 2020?

As I look back on the close of 2019, I could never have anticipated how prescient was my end-of-year stewardship letter. Some of you may recall that I quoted from Tod Bolsinger’s book, Canoeing the Mountains, which discusses the challenges of leadership using the story of Lewis and Clark’s famous Corps of Discovery Expedition. At the heart of their challenge was the disappointment of never finding the famed northwest water passageway. Instead, as they came to the source of the Yellowstone River, they were confronted with more and more mountains, “immense ranges of high mountains still to the West of us.” Somehow though, their team held together, they adapted and kept going, all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

I wrote those words recognizing that 2020 would inevitably bring challenges that we could not foresee, but also confident that the Lord would see us through whatever was ahead just as He promised (Phil. 1:6). And He has and He is. We’re still not through the coronavirus and I’m sure that there are lots and lots of accompanying challenges that we have yet to summit, but we have stayed together and we are still on the Kingdom journey that the Lord has summoned us to. For this, we can be truly thankful.

In this past year, in which we canceled in-person worship for seventeen Sundays, Redeemer learned how to digitally broadcast its services so that now people literally from all over the world are worshipping with us. Amidst the pressures the coronavirus brought to us, I think we have also discovered the Redeemer community to be an important anchor that keeps us steady in the midst of the storm. To this point, I heard from several of you that your virtual community groups had actually deepened your connections with one another rather than diminishing them. What is more, even in the midst of this year’s chaos, God has seen fit to bring to Redeemer new members through two online membership classes, grow our women’s ministries, and expand the reach of Redeemer’s ministry to youth in our city. Praise God!

Friends, our God is at work in and through Redeemer Presbyterian Church in the city of San Antonio! I cannot express enough how thankful I am for each of you and your consistent generosity, faithful participation and joyful spirits, all of which have been critical to Redeemer canoeing the mountains of 2020.

Adding yet one more encouraging signpost to the year 2020 is Redeemer’s financial strength. Due to COVID-19, Redeemer’s expenses have been greatly reduced. In spite of this, however, Redeemer has already received in tithes and offerings $1,766,992, which is 13.5% ahead of last year’s giving. This is truly remarkable!

As is always true at this time of year, there remains a significant gap needing to be addressed if Redeemer is going to meet the annual budget. At this time the Session anticipates needing slightly more than $700,000, which is on pace with last year’s end-of-year contributions.

Given that there is likely to be a significant surplus of income over expenses in 2020 does not minimize the importance of your contributions either. As in past years, significant surpluses create important ministry opportunities, allowing Redeemer to contribute much more to existing ministries, city partners, and to address remaining debt associated with our facilities.

In conclusion, I want to ask you to sacrificially and prayerfully consider what your year-end giving will be, thereby ensuring that Redeemer meets or exceeds all our ministry priorities.

Again, thank you for your faithful participation. From one mountain climber to another, the journey has never been more important!

For Christ Our Redeemer,

• To find our more about Redeemer's 2020 budget and approach to giving, please click here.
• If you would like to make your gift online, click here.