Paving the Road Ahead

Educators in stewardship suggest that the front of a church, including the garden and parking lot, is one of the most important factors in a prospective church attendee’s decision to take that next step… enter. With this in mind, and the knowledge that our parking lot was becoming increasingly potted, we decided to develop a concrete plan to repave.  Simultaneously, we felt that it was time to address our long-term debt, and instead of adding to it this year, try paying it down. Over the course of a few pizza lunches, the stewardship committee came up with a plan to develop a two-pronged campaign, one that we hoped would appeal to both those who wanted to see funds spent on capital projects and those who wished the focus to be solely fiscal responsibility.

Once the plan was in place, we progressed to the second stage. Easy-to-use campaign packages were assembled, and handed to, delivered, or mailed to all parishioners during the last two weeks of March. Completed pledge cards were requested for the middle of April.

Stage three was the design of what we hoped would be an appealing visual presentation for the campaign. The end product was a three-dimensional model, using parking spaces to represent the paving dollars needed ($30,000) and a model of the church itself to represent the long-term debt dollars ($20,000). We decided on a participatory event once a month during both services. May 15^th was our first Sunday, and we were able to ask parishioners at the 10:00 service to park a total of 8 cars in numbered parking spots that represented the $8,000 given during April, the first month of the campaign. A further $12,500 was given to the campaign over the five Sundays in May, and on June 5^th, we parked 6 cars during the 8:30 service and another 6 cars during the 10:00 service. We were delighted to have Elva Hollingworth give a testimonial at the 10:00 service supporting the need for the resurfacing of the parking lot. She had the honour of parking the first car at that service. Only 10 parking spaces remain carless now, and we are excited to fill those spaces too.

- Julia Lockhart