Why Give? 10.21.2022.

What do Jesus’ words “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:21) mean for you, your life, and your faith?

How does is affirm? How does it challenge?

Throughout stewardship season at Trinity we’re featuring the giving stories of four church members.

Here Ginny & Joe Fluet share why being able to give to Trinity Church is such a special thing for them.

Why Give?

Joe and Ginny Fluet write: Why do we choose to worship at Trinity Episcopal Church? We have been parishioners since 2007, when we first moved to Virginia. Drawn by the beautiful church, the splendid music, and the magnificent ministry of our priests and staff, we have made Trinity our church home. Since the beginning, we have attended the Sunday 10:30 Service as well as the Wednesday Noon Service.

We have both been active in church work at Trinity. Joe has served on the Vestry twice, been Lector, Stewardship, Buildings and Grounds, and Worship Committee Chairman, as well as served on the Healing Ministry. He has also attended the Wednesday morning Bible Study since he first joined Trinity, and Ginny & Joe Fluet currently leads that Bible Study. Ginny founded the Healing Ministry at Trinity in 2010, is a lector, chalice bearer and has participated in Worship Committee, Parish Life, and the Hunt Country Stable Tours.

Why do we give all this time to the church? Because we are blessed. We were blessed by God to be born into loving, Christian families. Some of us were

blessed by the many people sent by God when we wandered away. We were blessed by God with good brains, talents, abilities and skills. We were blessed

by God who loved and guided us our whole lives. We are blessed to be children of God. We gladly give from this abundance to return these blessings in God’s service.

For the same reason, we have always pledged a reasonable amount and generally paid our pledge on time. But we must confess, in the past, we paid all the other bills first and, if we ran short, the church had to wait till we got more money. After all, we didn’t have to pay interest or service charges if we were late with the church’s money!

One year, during the stewardship campaign, we began to entertain the idea of putting God first in our lives and in our finances. Ginny, the bill payer, was terrified at the thought of tithing 10% of our income. So we decided to start by always writing our pledge check first and increasing our pledge amount gradually. Amazingly, we always had enough money each month. We continued increasing our pledge and our giving until we were tithing. The startling thing is that unexpected money seemed to appear whenever we were short. Whenever we gave more, we had more, not less, and it continues to be true to this day.

At the core of our tithe is the certain knowledge that our many blessings come from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and we give joyfully to help spread the joy that we are given each day.

Giiny & Joe Fluet

We hope that through the testimony of Ginny & Joe and other members of the Trinity family, too, you will be encouraged in your giving and generosity.

This year we’re delighted that completing your pledge form and setting up your giving is fully integrated and completely digital! It really couldn’t be easier!

Visit trinityupperville.org/pledge to make your 2023 pledge today.