September 14, 2025
Mark Gresser, Council President, gave a presentation on stewardship and our Holy Myrrhbearers Church, on September 14th, 2025. This is a summarized account of his remarks.
Mark’s background as a retired CPA and business executive provides him with a skill set that helps our Church budget annually. Mark’s path to Orthodoxy, for him personally, is to note that Orthodox parishioners appear to be “all in”. That they are very spiritually grounded and dedicated to their church.
He referenced the three pillars of Orthodoxy: prayer, fasting and alms giving. Like a three legged stool, all are of equal importance and need to be in place for the stool to stand. Jesus intended for our giving to be a joyful experience. Yet for some it is a necessary but unpleasant task.
Currently 25% of givers in our Church provide 76% of the revenue. And to date we have received 60% of the pledge cards handed out at the start of the year. A book called Money and Salvation was handed out along with new pledge cards. These can be obtained the next time you attend if you happened to miss Liturgy last Sunday.
The ask is that you read the book, hopefully finding a renewed outlook on giving, then prepare a new pledge card for the remainder of 2025 and all of 2026. Obviously tithing is Biblical, giving 10% of your income to the Church.
However it is understandable that you may not be able to reach that threshold. Please give what you can, volunteer on some options on the back of the card and return the cards as soon as possible. Praying for us all to find the joy in giving back to God, who has given us everything we have.
God Bless,
Mark Gresser
