Services for Churches - Stewardship
A Sacred Past… A Glorious Future
“God loves you,“ four-year-old Emmy assures Hutto United Methodist Church members as she assists Rev. Kathy Schady, senior pastor, with communion. This basic Christian principle unified a disparate congregation as they journeyed together to discover God’s purpose for their church. Though sent to revitalize a 1910 church in the middle of an agrarian community experiencing explosive growth, Schady realized shortly after arriving that this languishing historic church did not fit any of the typical models. She faced the daunting task of melding established farming families, for whom the sanctuary represented a sacred past, with suburbanites who had no ties to the church’s history.
By opening up free flowing channels of grace, the congregation has grown from 10 in 1997 to more than 100 today. A recent capital campaign entitled “A Sacred Past - A Glorious Discovery Future,“ directed by Dick Young, stewardship consultant for the Texas Methodist Foundation, raised four times their budget. Phase I includes a family life center on 10 acres of land donated by one of the members while Phase II involves moving a refurbished sanctuary across cotton fields to a new location. “By giving God room to work and making ourselves vulnerable to one another, we discovered a true community of faith united by the love of God,“ said Rev. Schady.
Growing Faithful Givers