Your pledge is carefully, prayerfully, and lovingly invested in our parish. From music, to fellowship, to building upkeep, and more, each dollar has its purpose and plan. To give a fuller picture of our expenses and how money is spent, we’ve put together the following narrative budget.
Take a look to see the many reasons for pledging at St. George’s.
Worship and Music: 26%
Services
Worship to suit your tradition with five Sunday Services as well as Noonday Prayer during the week. Whether you’re inspired by tradition, graced with Celtic roots, or more laid back about prayer, we have five wonderful services to help you celebrate the Sabbath and look forward to the week ahead.
Communion wafers and wine, candles, and other supplies used by our Altar Guild are included here.
The garden of worship we see every Sunday in flower arrangements by our Flower Guild is part of this budget category as well.
However you choose to approach God, St. George’s offers you a path to walk – or skip.
Children and Worship
Children have taught us they need to be able to see what’s going on. So we responded by creating a soft space in the front of our worship area. The rug at the front of the nave is a space for children and parents to sit, listen, and see. We’ve found that children here are also able to get up and find parents nearby with minimal disruption once they are able to be on the rug by themselves.
We invite you and your child to join us on the Rug…and at the front door of our church.
Children can serve at our services when they sign up to join the processional or one of the youth choirs, help at the altar, and carry forward bread and wine at our services. Your children may also greet churchgoers with you at the door. Hospitality and welcoming from the children is a gentle reason to consider pledging.
Music Ensembles
The Bible includes more than 73 instrumental music performances and we’ll give you at least eight in our Sunday worship services.
The Jazz Ensemble at our 9 am service may feature blues on the sax to smooth out those rough days or a jazz trumpet to wake up the angels in celebration of life’s better moments. Usually a seasonal combination of both will help you start the week in time with the Almighty.
Chamber Ensemble musicians at our 11:15 am service provide instrumental leadership for your hymns and offering during the 11:15 Eucharist. Violins will accompany your prayers while French horns echo your thoughts about your pledge.
If you feel closer to God in the afternoons, our Church offers its 5:30 pm Celtic Ensemble with alternating musicians playing lilting songs in the spirit of St. Patrick, St. Andrew and the British Isles.
After sunset, when you’re beginning to think how best to start a new week, St. George’s invites you to close your weekend in the company of God with an inspirational and candlelit Chanted Compline at 8 p.m., led by our Compline Choir.
We invite you to try one on before and after dinner sometime. Your tummy will feel better about pledging.
The vaulted ceilings of our church Nave and the choir loft at the rear of our gallery offer wonderful staging for any of our choral ensembles as well as the professionally directed Hand Bell Choir. Making a joyful voice to God above and to the congregation below is a great way to feel at one with the universe we share.
Our Hand Bell Choir alternates weekly from the loft between 9 and 11:15 morning services, usually during the Eucharist. It’s a lovely reason to look upwards during worship and think about how to thank God for being so generous in our lives.
The Choirs of St. George’s provide stirring harmonies, as well as rousing gospel melodies. While the Compline and Celtic Voices bring a rich quality in monastic and Gaelic traditions. Whether you prefer one or all, consider inviting the voices of St George’s into your worship tradition…as we invite you to share in your pledge.
This year’s Summer Worship Arts Camp was a huge success! More than 20 children gathered to learn a musical in just four days of rehearsal. This year was FIRED UP!, a re-telling of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Children performed excerpts of the musical at the 10 a.m. service followed by a full showing.
Concerts for our Community
Our Chamber Series of concerts brings a variety of talented regional and national performers to the beautiful nave of St. George’s Episcopal Church in historic Old Town Fredericksburg for an afternoon of “beautiful music in a beautiful space”. Thanks to generous donations, we offer each concert for free.
St. Georgians have worked hard to bring the music of our Lord through the parish’s grand organ. If the All Hallows Eve “Scary Organ Music Concert” doesn’t make you jump into pledge modal, then the joyous carols of our Christmas celebrations and memories of family giving and generosity among friends surely will.
St. George’s pipe organ sits majestically in the rear balcony with choir seating on tiered risers to the front and sides of the case. It was designed and built by Parsons Pipe Organ Builders of Canandaigua, NY is their largest and most complex instrument to date. The organ facade is designed in the mid-19th Century Italianate style in keeping with the historic 1849 church building. The façade design was a collaborative effort between Parsons, Jim Wollon, historic preservation architect from the Baltimore area, and Dan Cole of PipeShader.
Please stay a bit after the recessional and enjoy a stirring postlude from one of our gifted organists on the grand organ. It may stir you to consider making your pledge.
Christian Formation: 19%
Pledging to keep the young at our hearts…
Children of all ages are welcome at St. George’s! Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is religious formation for children rooted in the Montessori tradition. Each room, called an atrium, is prepared for the children with objects designed to foster a deeper knowledge of God, the Church, and our traditions. It is a place of simplicity and order, prayer, work, and community.
Our Youth Programs provide Christian based opportunities for youth grades 6 – 12 to explore their own faith journey and join an inclusive community that welcomes everyone regardless of where you are in your spiritual life.
Other groups like Rite 13 and Confirm not Conform support youth on each leg of their journey to adulthood.
Throughout the year, we offer a wonderful array of special activities and events for children and youth:
- Welcome Back “Sundaes on Sunday” Party
- Shrine Mont Parish Retreat in Orkney Springs, VA
- Third Grade Bibles Presented
- Christmas Parade Viewing Party
- Christmas Eve Pageant
- Preschool Ash Wednesday Service
- Children’s Easter Vigil – Liturgy of the Light
- Easter Egg Hunt
- Summer Picnic Fun
- Vacation Bible School
- Kids Care – Outreach Club for 2nd – 5th graders
- And Robin Roberson’s Youth Choirs for the young and very young!
Even if you can only pledge a little for the little, please pledge if you can.
Some Learning Opportunities for Your Pledge…
Our comprehensive Adult Christian Formation includes forums, discussion groups, Bible studies, and more. Together, we explore theology, spirituality, the impact of the arts and literature on our lives, and practical ways to live out our Baptismal Covenant.
For deeper exploration, groups like Education for Ministry (EfM), Lectio Divina, and Quiet Circles offer opportunities to study, reflect, and grow.
Additionally, our annual Lenten Weekend brings diverse voices and viewpoints to our greater community.
Outreach and Mission: 18%
Food for Thought and for Pledging…
Either by operating or participating in community food bank projects, St. George’s is a source of sustenance for our community.
The Table is St. George’s (market-style) food pantry that operates out of Sydnor Hall each Tuesday.
Since 2012, volunteers at The Table have been welcoming people to this food pantry in the hope that at this Table, as at our altar table, all may come and find sustenance. Its unique market-style approach means patrons get to pick the fresh food produce they need for their families each week.
Community dinners, organized by Micah Ecumenical Ministries, provide free meals for the community almost every night of the year. There is a community dinner at St. George’s every Monday in Sydnor Hall. Our congregation provides food, and service for the third and fourth Mondays of the month and we partner with other agencies to cook for the remaining weeks.
Food for Life is a feeding program for the elderly in need within our community offered by our local food bank. Volunteers greet and distribute food boxes once a month from our building.
Our Micah Sandwich Team volunteers meet on monthly in the kitchen to make and pack 175 brown bagged sandwiches for distribution by Micah.
If you’re looking for a place your pledge is most needed, “The place God calls you to, is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” —Fredrick Buechner
More Reasons for Extending your Reach and your Pledge…
Your pledge travels far and wide, stretching to parts of the world desperate for hope.
Youth travel to Glory Ridge annually for worship, work, prayer, and simplicity. In the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains, they perform service projects for neighbors of the camp.
Worldwide, we have a partnership with a school and parish in Haiti. We send two medical mission trips each year to Port-au-Prince to work alongside our partner the Paroisse Notre-Dame de L’Annonciation.
Administrative: 14%
While this piece of the pie might not be the most exciting, it’s necessary to keep the parish running.
Office equipment and computer hardware and software keep the staff productive and the office firing on all cylinders.
And if you stop by on a Wednesday afternoon, you’ll hear the hum of bulletin printing that’s a mainstay of weekly operations.
Telecommunications, postage, and office supplies are some of the other expenses rounding out this category.
Member Care: 11%
The Fellowship Commission provides St. George’s members with opportunities to share in the communal spirit of Jesus Christ in this parish. You can taste and see the Commission’s work immediately after this service downstairs at coffee hour. This commission is also responsible for hospitality at special receptions, the parish picnic and Saturday Night Suppers.
And if you’re into pancakes, sausage, and jazz, be sure to stop by next Shrove Tuesday for a Mardi Gras celebration.
Shrine Mont
For all the family, each autumn the congregation has the opportunity to spend a spiritual, musical, and tasty fellowship retreat weekend at Shrine Mont, the Episcopal Resort near Bryce Mountain. Bring yourself a little closer to heaven in Virginia’s Blue Ridge. It will definitely bring you closer to sending in your pledge if you haven’t already.
A Rhythmic Reason to Pledge
Drum Circle is a gathering of people who come together to express themselves through the use of percussive instruments. No experience is necessary because the cooperative energy of the group creates a rhythm that lifts and carries all participants. Drumming helps create a sacred space infused with healing—it is both experiential and therapeutic.
When people come together as a group to create rhythm, something intrinsic and inclusive happens. Picture a flock of birds flying together…one of the birds is leading the way, but all of the birds seem to know exactly where the lead bird is going. This same phenomenon begins to happen with a group of drummers listening to each other and playing together. One drummer plays and more and more drummers are able to join in and naturally play with the momentum of the rhythm. See if the First Wednesday of each month doesn’t drum up an interest to pledge in St. George’s.
Some Very Caring Reasons to Pledge
Pastoral care is taken seriously and lovingly at St. George’s by our One Body Response Team OBRT Stephen Ministry, and Prayer Grou0p.
The 75-member OBRT group provides St. Georgians with the care good neighbors give. OBRT members lend a helping hand in an emergency, run errands, touch base via phone or with a visit, provide a hot meal, send an encouraging card, or provide transportation.
Stephen Ministry equips and empowers lay caregivers to provide high-quality, confidential, Christ-centered care to people struggling through a difficult time in their life.
St. George’s Prayer Group is a small, ecumenical, group gathering at 10 a.m. on the second and fourth Thursdays of every month to pray by name for whomever prayer has been requested.
St. George’s congregation and clergy are here to help you through the dark tunnels into the light of life.
Building and Grounds: 6%
Some Traditional Reasons for Pledging
The historic facilities of St. George’s offer a sacred home for baptisms, confirmations, weddings, and celebrations of life. Each year, many experience the joy, dignity, and presence of God in their lifetime events at the altar of our church.
The “the church is open” sign welcomes all to enter the church between services for private prayers. The votive table to the right of the altar is a peaceful corner to say a prayer for loved ones. During the summer, docents offer tours of our historic Nave. Your pledge helps us preserve the heritage of our building and to keep it open to all in love.
Keeping it Green
At St. George’s, our Environmental Stewardship Group focuses on improving St. George’s eco-footprint and educating the community to be better stewards of God’s Creation. Working with Stewardship of Creation at the Episcopal Church, The Episcopal Ecological Network, and Interfaith Power and Light, we’re working to preserve the earth with which we’ve been blessed.
Our newly reorganized Library is a treasure trove of spiritual reading with virtually no carbon footprint. Prayer and Meditation? Spiritual Women? Notable Christians? Old Testament? New Testament? World Religions? We have you covered! Please sign the binder to let us know what you take home. Enjoy!
The St. George’s Library is located behind Sydnor Hall.
Communications: 5%
Some Newsworthy Reasons for Pledging
St. George’s Social Media lets you keep abreast of the meetings, opportunities and goings on each day, every week, all year! Our website is a bevy of information to help you get and stay connected with St. George’s.
Our weekly e-newsletter, the St. Georgian, gives you pictures and stories of the latest gatherings and information about upcoming events.
We also advertise our Holy Week and Christmas services in the newspaper so more of our local community can celebrate the high holidays with us.
Signs, brochures, and other printed materials to help spread the word and catch the eye are part of the Communications piece of the pie.
Stewardship: 2%
The smallest piece of our pie goes towards Stewardship. This sliver covers mailings, supplies, and printing as we prepare to ask all to contribute their own bite to our budget.
We hope this narrative budget has helped give a fuller picture of how St. George’s is dedicated to investing our revenues in our parish, community, and world.
Lastly, we invite you to share in this beautiful bounty and this loving work with your pledge. Click here to pledge online.