Giving

There are many ways to give to The New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. First and foremost are the gifts of our time and talents. Members and friends are invited to become involved in the life and the many ministries of this church.

Also important are our financial gifts. Please follow the links below to discover ways to give your financial resources to God and the work of God's church.

• Annual Stewardship: 2010 Campaign-"Stepping Up"

• Capital Campaign: Building Connections-The Home Stretch

• Planned Giving: Our Legacies for God's Church

ANNUAL STEWARDSHIP AND GIVING TO THE NYAPC

Toward the end of a recent Session meeting that included updates on the church's current finances, the capital campaign, and planned giving, a weary elder pled for guidance: Where does The New York Avenue Presbyterian Church most need our gifts-annual stewardship giving, capital campaign, or planned giving?

The answer is all three, but the most important, the foundational gift among these opportunities for giving is our annual stewardship commitment-the weekly, monthly, yearly contribution of some portion of our financial resources to God and the work of God's church.

Certainly, from time to time the church has capital or other needs that warrant a special campaign. Begun in 2007 to modernize our elevators, renovate our sanctuary, and install a new pipe organ and concluding next year, the Building Connections capital campaign provides a current example. As we watch the new organ take shape in the refurbished chancel this fall, we are grateful for the funds promised and paid thus far and anticipate we will raise the remainder needed to complete this work.

Certainly, the church has benefited greatly from members and friends who have taken to heart the call to be good stewards of their accumulated financial resources, leaving the NYAPC generous bequests that have helped to fund the church's current ministries and its endowment. The legacies of these saints have ensured that after more than 200 years, this church continues to be a reformed and reforming presence in the heart of the nation's capital.

But just as certainly, the NYAPC depends on annual pledges from each of us in order to make commitments to fulfill the church's many missions this year, in 2010, and beyond. And we need to pledge, not only for the church and its missions, but for our spiritual health and as an act of worship.

In his book, "Giving to God," Mark Allen Powell urges us to view stewardship in its gospel context--not as expectation or requirement, but rather as option and possibility. Powell suggests that we answer the questions "to what should we give" and "how much" by carefully considering two types of faithful giving. The first of these is support, offering through pledges our fair share of what our church needs to accomplish its ministries each year. The second is sacrifice, giving something more and something we will miss because we are "joyful followers of Jesus Christ whose hearts are alive with love and gratitude for God." Through gifts that reflect both support and sacrifice, Powell invites us "to accept God's invitation to generosity, to live as [people] who [belong] to God and to give as [those] for whom giving is a duty and a delight."