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We Give

2020 Christmastide and Epiphany at St. George’s

December 8, 2020 by St. George's 1 Comment

Worship with us for Christmas and Epiphany! We have several virtual offerings for our Christmas worship. Here are our office hours and services for Christmastide.

Christmas Eve:

Office closes at 12 pm noon.

4 pm Family Christmas Story. Our family favorite Christmas service will premiere at 4 pm on Facebook and is available below and YouTube anytime. Click here for the service leaflet.

5:30 pm A Celtic Lessons and Carols. The beloved Lessons and Carols service will include Celtic music and prayers. This pre-recorded service will premiere at 5:30 pm on Facebook and is available below and YouTube anytime. Service includes ASL Interpretation. Click here for the service leaflet.  To listen to the service via Zoom (audio only): 929.205.6099; Meeting ID: 896 2345 6510; Password: 045971.

Christmas Day:

11:15 am Livestream worship. Christmas Day livestream worship from our Nave, via YouTube and posted to Facebook after the service ends. Click here for the service leaflet. To listen to the service via Zoom (audio only): 929.205.6099; Meeting ID: 896 2345 6510; Password: 045971.

December 25 – 29:

Office closed.  If you have a pastoral emergency and need to speak with clergy, please call or text 540.361.8573.

December 25 – January 5:

Twelve nights of Christmas Prayers
We invite you to connect in a community of prayer, December 25 through January 5. We will gather from 8 – 8:30 pm by phone to share in seasonal reflection, meditation, and prayer led by St. Georgians. Celebrating the birth of Christ in an especially challenging time, we pray for the needs of the world and seek grace together. To access the call: dial 301-715-8592. When prompted, enter the Meeting ID: 838 7199 7224. Then when prompted, enter the passcode: 093396. To mute and unmute yourself, press *6.

December 27:

Micah Lessons and Carols Service. The churches of Micah Ecumenical Ministries will offer a pre-recorded Lessons and Carols service. All are invited to a 9 am watch party via St. George’s Facebook page.

Diocesan Lessons and Carols Service. The Diocese of Virginia will also have a Lessons and Carols Service – including a song by our very own Jazz Ensemble! View details on how to watch on the Diocese’s website.

December 28:

12 pm: Special livestream Noon Prayer service via Facebook Live for Holy Innocents Feast Day.

December 30:

Office is open. If you have an end of the year financial gift, please mail to the church office (905 Princess Anne Street Fredericksburg, VA 22401). Checks received that are postmarked by on or before December 31 will be included in 2020 giving statements. You can also give online via our giving portal here. If you need to drop off your gift, please contact us to make arrangements.

December 31 – New Year’s Eve:

Office is closed and will reopen January 4.

New Year’s Day:

Office closed.

12 pm: Special livestream Noon Prayer service via Facebook Live for The Holy Name Feast Day.

January 6: Feast of the Epiphany

We will provide at home worship materials for this Holy Feast! Stay tuned for more information.

Filed Under: News Blog, We Care, We Give, Worship Tagged With: Christmas, service, worship

Memorials and Thanksgivings for Easter

March 12, 2019 by St. George's Leave a Comment

Would you like to help decorate the church this Easter by offering Easter flowers in honor or in memory of loved ones? Or perhaps give a gift that keeps on giving long after the flowers are gone with a donation to one of St. George’s funds? If so, please fill out the form below and submit your payment no later than April 14, 2019.

If you are having problems viewing the form, please click here.

Filed Under: Fellowship, Giving, Ministries, News Blog, Parish Life, We Give, Worship Tagged With: Easter, flower guild, flowers, giving, memorials

Vestry Notes

March 1, 2018 by St. George's 4 Comments

At our retreat in January, your vestry set goals for 2018.  One of the priorities we identified we call “listening to the body;” by which we mean listening to the body of the church, listening to the congregation, listening to you. We are focusing on this priority by devoting specific time during each vestry meeting to discuss comments or questions that have come to us as vestry members.  We have also set up a “vestry table” in Sydnor Hall after the Sunday morning services. While we always welcome your comments and questions on any subject, we have selected specific topics that we hope you will explore with us.

During the month of February our selected topic was accessibility and barriers at St. George’s. Thanks to all of you who responded, both at the table and by engaging in conversation about the topic with vestry members where ever you encountered them. You provided us with a wealth of information! The list of responses was posted behind the vestry table during February and they are now being shared with the staff.

Some concrete issues, such as improving signage, can be addressed almost immediately. Other barriers, such as architectural changes, will take outside expertise, time, and money. This is an excellent time to identify those barriers, because we will be considering how to mitigate them as we move forward with plans for our capital campaign in 2019.

Some of the intangibles listed, especially in the area of worship and the area of leadership, provide us with topics for deep thought and discussion. The first step was bringing these topics to the table. The next step will be to provide a forum for listening to each other and discerning how to address these stumbling blocks. I look forward to our taking this next step together.

In March the topic of conversation at the Vestry Table will be buildings and grounds. What solutions do you imagine to some of those physical barriers you identified in February? What would you like to see us doing with our buildings and grounds? What dreams do you have for our physical space? The sky’s the limit. Talk with us about buildings and grounds.

—Ethel Hellman, Senior Warden

Filed Under: News Blog, We Give Tagged With: Vestry

Planned Giving in Lent: The Wrap-Up

April 6, 2017 by St. George's Leave a Comment

Jeremiah 29:11 –“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

We hope you have a better idea about the subject of planned giving from the previous five weeks and also about ways you can participate in it at St. George’s. You have no doubt realized that “one size doesn’t fit all” when it comes to planned giving. We have just scratched the surface of some of these topics, particularly with last week’s life income gifts or the donation of long term assets directly to the church.

What matters in the end is how your financial picture can improve at the same time the church benefits.  Some churches such as St. Paul’s Episcopal in Richmond have a long history of planned gifts from which they are benefiting.

Our planned gifts history has been spotty: We can do better. Gifts for our trusts and funds are requested only in Lent and Advent. I remember only one charitable annuity. We have at least eight people who have named St. George’s in their wills. The most significant gift was over $500,000, which brought the Endowment Fund to life and is the basis for the gifts it makes yearly for church projects.

Please consider the vast range of possibilities and then come forward and make a gift yourself. We can definitely do better.  In any case, the next step is yours, with some examples from this series:

  • Consider a gift this Easter for the Memorial Trust Fund or Endowment Fund. There are no minimum amounts. Anyone can do this. The donation will live on beyond this Easter or next.
  • If you don’t have a will, consult an attorney in 2017 and make one. If you have one, have you reviewed it recently for provisions that need changing? Please consider adding a gift to St. George’s in your will.
  • Do you have any appreciated stock? You may have thought about selling it since it has done well. Consider donating it to St. George’s in the name of the Memorial Trust Fund or Endowment Fund, and let the church sell it for you, giving you a deductible contribution for the value of the appreciated stock on the day of donation and saving you capital gains tax as well.
  • Similar advice is for other long term assets. Consider making a listing of your long term assets to see how they could be made to work better for you.
  • Are you needing additional income?   Transfer assets to Charitable Annuity or trust. You will still have them but gain a tax deduction on the year of donation, income over a number of years with the residual passed on to St. George’s.  Planned Giving for all parties in one stop!
  • Do you have a charitable IRA and are 70.5 or approaching that age? Do you need the “required minimum distribution” (RMD)? If not, have your IRA holder transfer the RMD to us and avoid the tax impact!

In any case, I would definitely talk to your accountant, financial planner or attorney for additional suggestions on how planned giving can benefit your financial situation as well as the church.  If you need names of professionals, please contact me for some suggestions without any endorsements.

I am ending these articles with a question for you – “Were these articles helpful? Are you more likely to make that planned gift? Do you have questions you would like an answer?    Let me know: ben.hicks@stgeorgesepiscopal.net.

Filed Under: Giving, We Give

Building Treasures: Charitable Annuities and Trusts

March 30, 2017 by St. George's Leave a Comment

Planned Giving in Lent – Part 5 

Matthew 6:21 –“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Our final destination – charitable annuities and charitable trusts.

These products are sometimes called life income gifts since they grow out of donor’s lifetime income stream and they are managed for you.  They are somewhat more complicated because of this. You need a third party to draw up a contracts and to manage the life income gift. The new Diocese of Va. Planned Giving site has that capacity –  as well as providing a deeper treatment of life income gifts than what I can do here.

Life income products are typically designed for older parishioners. There may be minimum age requirements and minimum investable amounts.  For example, with the charitable annuity at the Episcopal Church Foundation, there is a minimum age of 55 and a minimum contribution of $5,000.

The opportunity to make life income gifts grew out of the 1969 tax reform act, which, for the first time, made a distinction between an asset and its earnings, enabling a person to keep the asset and give away the earnings, or to keep the earnings and give away the asset.

The several forms of life income gifts but they essentially work the same way:

  1. Assets are transferred to an entity such as the Episcopal Church Foundation (ECF).
  2. The ECF invests the assets, (or sells them) and produces income, which is paid to the donor and/or spouse, or another person if desired. In many cases, the income is generated monthly.
  3. At death or at the end of the term the remaining funds will go to the church.

The advantage is that you don’t have to sell your income-producing assets to take advantage of life income gifts.  If you are younger and feel pressure to save for retirement or you are older at retirement on a fixed income, these products may be of interest. If your assets are “tied up” in an investment, such as a beach home or business, this may work for you.  Don’t sell the asset, but transfer it to an entity like the ECF and have them set it up in an annuity or trust.

A Charitable Gift Annuity is a contract between a donor and the ECF through which the Foundation promises to pay a fixed annuity income to a donor for the rest of his or her (or their) life.  These amounts are guaranteed. There are both for singles and couples. Generally you give cash and securities to establish the annuity.

There are several benefits for the donor:

  1. Receiving a tax deduction on the year you make the gift based on your age.
  2. Donating the asset but not giving up the assets earning power. The asset is invested and you will received annuity payments over each year, in many cases a monthly or quarterly check. There is also a variant – a deferred gift annuity where you establish the gift annuity today, receive a charitable income tax deduction this year for the gift, but defer the payments until a designated date sometime in the future.
  3. A portion of each annuity payment is tax free— also determined by Treasury tables.
  4. At death, the annuity is completely excludable from the donor’s taxable estate since it goes back to the ECF and then St. George’s.

A Charitable Remainder Trust is similar to the Charitable Gift Annuity; the difference is that your return is not for the rest of your life, but over a specific period, generally a maximum of 20 years.  Also your return may be either a fixed percent based on market value on the date trust was created (annuity trust) or a fixed percent based on the value on specific date of the year (unitrust). The latter payout will vary since it is based on the investment performance of the assets.

Note that unlike the charitable annuity there is no guaranteed return.  Another difference is a wider variety of assets that can be transferred, including real estate. You transfer your assets into a trustee who is responsible for selling appreciated assets, and investing and reinvesting those assets, together with any income therefrom, and for making distributions to you and/or your designated beneficiary. When the trust terminates the remainder would go to St. George’s.

I am ending these articles with a question for you – Would a life income gift be a planned giving vehicle you would be willing to consider? Why or why not? What attracts you and also what causes you concern?  Let me know ben.hicks@stgeorgesepiscopal.net.  I will pick the best answer or if there are too many a random one that is complete. The winner gets at $5 Hyperion card to “have one on me.”

Filed Under: Giving, We Give

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