In the late spring of 2017, Father Henry reached out to several parishioners in an effort to form a group to address stewardship issues.  This came about as a result of discussions between Father Henry and the Vestry.

On forming the group, we quickly discovered that stewardship meant much more than fund raising.  Based on the premise that the members of the Church represent its assets, we decided to focus on these assets and the goals that the Church has for its members.  As Father Henry defined it, we want our members to become fully engaged disciples of Christ.  While the details of this goal differ from member to member, we found a central definition (aspirational) that we adopted as follows:

A fully engaged disciple of Christ is someone:

1. who has made a personal commitment to be a contributing member of the Christ Church family,

2. who is growing in prayer and the study of scripture,

3. who has is developing an understanding of their own gifts and talents and employs them in ministry that builds up the Body of Christ,

4. who regularly participates in worship with the parish family, and

5. who is involved in outreach and mission as a Christian witness.

At its essence, we determined that stewardship involved the cultivation and management of the time, talent, and treasure of each member of Christ Church in order to progress along the road to becoming a fully engaged of disciple of Christ.  So that we could approach these broader goals, the team (Pathway to Engagement) divided into five sub teams with two Pathway members on each sub team (as Chair and Vice-Chair).  These sub teams recruited additional members for a total of 34 parishioners (see Attachment 1 for a list of sub teams and members) (see attachment 2 for a list of sub team goals/assignments made by the Pathway group).

After months of work, we put together a full report.  As often happens, themes developed in the process of getting to this stage.  We have structured this report along those themes, but without discussing which sub team(s) raised/discussed the issue.  Instead, we have accumulated the work of all contributors to address specific topics in order of importance and depth on interest in the parish.  In this report, we will provide a brief topic overview (necessary in order to understand our recommendations) followed by our recommendations.  Often, you will see that we recommend further work pursuant to very specific guidance.  This sort of recommendation reflects the conclusion that, though we worked a lot, discovered a lot and resolved a lot, there remains much to do.