March 2010
Dear Friends,
There have been several significant moments in our history when members of St. Bartholomew’s have ventured to move, to build, to change or to enhance our church buildings and sacred spaces.
This is one of those moments.
After years of thinking, of vigorous and honest discussion, and now of planning and designing, we are ready to replace our aging and deteriorating seating with beautiful new chairs. I ask you to decide prayerfully to donate one or more chairs to help equip our sacred space for the challenges of a new day.
We have designed a chair—a comfortable and handsome object, capable of connecting into orderly rows, easily moveable—to replace pews that are beyond prudent repair.
My wife and I are part of a daily increasing group who are ready—and happy—to donate chairs to honor and remember loved ones, or simply to give to God’s glory in thanksgiving for St. Bartholomew’s.
Please remember that the donation of a chair or chairs is a one-time capital gift, not a substitute for an annual pledge or gift for the church’s operation and mission. If you’re a pledger or annual giver and can’t give a chair without reducing your pledge, please don’t give a chair. That’s how fundamentally important annual giving is.
Please take the time to read—and as the Prayer Book says to “learn, mark and inwardly digest”—the case we make here. I hope you’ll then decide to give. And even if you don’t, please pray for this great parish and for all those who do give that we’ll be worthy of this significant moment in our history.
Faithfully, your rector,
William McD. Tully
