Midyear Budget Revision
Christina Honchell, Parish Administrator

The Finance Committee and our staff are committed to prudent, responsible and realistic financial management and to transparency in our financial reporting. Part of that commitment is an annual process to evaluate the budget in July every year, in order to determine whether we need to adjust spending to bring it into line with expected income.

On July 29, the Finance Committee met to do that annual analysis and budget review, and passed a resolution to lower our expense budget for 2010 by the amount of $156,000. This cuts represents 3% of our annual budget, and is based on a careful analysis of the elements that go into our annual pledge budget; we have identified anticipated shortfalls in new expected new pledges, late payments on prior years’ pledges and on renewals.

This action acknowledges that we are experiencing a new normal in our financial relationsip, as an institution, and within each of our parish families. We are grateful that we were able to do budget reductions which held up our core values of not cutting the budgets for Peace & Justice, the Office for Creative Connections or Pastoral Care, and without cutting any staff positions.

The cuts are made up of savings from open staff positions in the first half of the year (all positions are now filled), the fruits of careful work to cut our administrative overhead with new arrangements for phones and copiers, our liability insurance renewing in April at a rate lower than we had planned for, lower utility costs than we had budgeted for, and cuts to some of our program budgets. We are also using the operating contingencies that we budget each year.

What will you notice? We are no longer serving coffee during the week – we will continue to offer the hospitality of coffee on Sundays for services, but it will not be available for meetings on campus. You may be asked to potluck some of your gatherings, so that we are not spending pledge dollars on meals. Some of our programs will delay planned purchases of materials and supplies. We have not cut into the heart and soul of our mission, however we do want to recognize that we need to creatively embrace the new financial realities we live in.

You can find our financial statements through June here. We post our financials on the website each month after they are given to the Finance Committee. If you have questions, you can call me at 626.583.2742 or send an email to chonchell@allsaints-pas.org.

We are deeply appreciative of all that you continue to do to support the ministry and mission of this wonderful enterprise, as we move forward to turn the human race into the human family. 

Celebrate Our New Peace & Justice Director

Dear Friends,

It gives me great pleasure to announce that the Rev. Carissa Baldwin has accepted my invitation to join the All Saints staff as the Director of Peace & Justice, effective September 1, 2010. 

Ordained a priest in 2007, Carissa has served for the past three years as Assistant Rector and Outreach Center Director at St. Stephen’s Church in Houston, Texas. She graduated from Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts and received her Master of Divinity degree at the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas. She spent a year studying in Spain and is fluent in Spanish. Before attending seminary, Carissa spent 10 years as a community organizer in Brownsville, Texas, organizing with churches and public schools. As a long-time advocate for social justice and human rights, Carissa said when she read the job posting for the position at All Saints, “This is the story of my life.” 

I am grateful to the search committee, chaired by Will Watts, for their good and thorough work. And I invite you to introduce yourself to Carissa on her first Sunday, September 5, and welcome her aboard!

Peace,




 

A Summer Message from Ed Bacon

Have a wonderful summer! And remember, All Saints, All Summer!

The first few days of my annual summer study month are dedicated to re-reading all the passages of scripture appointed for the next program year.  As I read them all, I make a “sermon chart” for all the Sundays next year.  I enter the sermon themes that are drawing my interest from each passage.  I share that sermon chart with James Walker, director of music.  From that document he and I choose hymns and he chooses anthems for the Sundays from Homecoming Sunday through the Sunday closest to July 4.

Then I go to my book stack and read based on the themes that have spoken to me while savoring the scripture.

Here are the volumes that are currently on my stack:

Alter, Jonathan The Promise: President Obama, Year One

Bacevich, Andrew J. , Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War (American Empire Project) 

Heilemann, John, Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime

Knitter, Paul, Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian

MacCulloch, Diarmaid, Christianity; The First Three Thousand Years

Merton, Thomas, Seeds

Moore, Thomas, Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels

Niebuhr, Reinhold, The Irony of American History

O’Connor, Flannery, The Habit of Being

Robinson, Marilynne, Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self

Shulevitz, Judith The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time
 

 ACTIONS ALIVE!

Over 600 parishioners signed their names to the statement of conscience issed by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. These signatures have been added to thousands from across the country and will be delivered to Capitol Hill in August by organizers from NRCAT.

Thank you, everyone, for your participation.

To visit All Saints' Virtual Action Table, click here.