Stewardship: “The start of Sacred Heart being a Stewardship Parish is for each one of us to be good Stewards in our own lives.” The movement towards stewardship as a community began in earnest a year ago, after listening sessions with parishioners. As a result, we announced “Vision: True North”, a vision by which we continue to live our gospel-centered mission, even as we build our future. A vision that continues our center of worship in our downtown church but provides us the ability to seek space and opportunity that will serve us during the new wave of growth in the downtown core and nearby neighborhoods; a growth we are already experiencing. This vision set our sights on fully engaging the North Campus, a 9.8-acre facility we already own and operate, as our designated Center of Ministry and Family Life.

Plans for 2020. During the spring and summer months, after receiving the “go-ahead” from Bishop Parkes, we formed a parish-planning team and engaged an architecture firm to begin to shape the master plan of how we could make our North Campus/True North come to life. During October we offered three sessions for parishioners to review several concepts and ideas for the North Campus – and to be engaged in the process. We believe we are still ahead of the downtown/area growth curve (for now!) and so we continue to be committed to organically growing the campus versus a capital campaign. And so, once again, we are asking you to make your plans for giving during 2020 so that we can make our plans as a parish for the coming year.

Call to Action. During the first weeks of November we are again asking parishioners and households – not for a financial commitment, nor a pledge – but simply to let us know your plans for giving in 2020. By understanding your weekly giving, we can better plan to fund our on-going mission as a parish, to support the diocese and pay our diocesan assessments (APA), and to fund our future growth as a community. As well, we can plan and fund the North Campus projects for 2020.

This year you can let us know your plans either using a simple online form or via a hard-copy planning card. We would strongly ask you to use the online form as it has many features that allow us to easily acknowledge your plan and to quickly provide the parish with feedback on our progress.

In either the online or hardcopy form, you can let us know if you intend to contribute to Offertory alone and trust us to work out the details. Or you can plan to designate your giving to specific funds, such as Offertory, the Annual Pastoral Appeal (APA), our True North Vision, or Church Maintenance & Repair, etc. …and while you are considering all this, please consider making your 2020 donations via our Online Giving system.

Where can you find the online forms? A parish-wide email was sent out on Oct. 24 and another on Oct. 30, which contained the link to the form. But if you missed it, just go the parish website and at the very top, click on the first image “Stewardship 2020: Make Your Giving Plans Today.” (Or if you are computer savvy, go directly to sacredheartfla.org/givingplan.) Complete the form and hit submit; it’s as easy as that!

During the weekends of Nov. 3, 10, and 17 we will have hardcopy forms available in the church. There will be a box to securely deposit your card near the front doors of the church during November.

Either way you will receive a confirmation email that we have your information and you have our gratitude. And – we will provide weekly updates on the number of households and families who have let us know their plans. Those updates will appear in the bulletin and on our website. In the beginning of December, we will update the parish on the number of families and some sense of the cumulative financial plans.

“The start of Sacred Heart being a Stewardship Parish is for each one of us to be good Stewards in our own lives.”