When All Saints' founders met in 1922 to form a new Episcopal church in Beverly Hills, then the western frontier of LA, they didn't know they would ever need a website or a Facebook page. Nor did they know that fifty years down the road their music program would be recognized nationally for excellence, or that 75 years later their church would begin offering a hot and hearty lunch to people without homes every Monday. They couldn't know that the church's members would respond with hands-on assistance when hurricanes devastated Honduras and the Gulf Coast. They must have talked about the importance of learning and teaching their children about faith, but they'd never heard of DOCC or Godly Play or CAST or NEST. They couldn't know what shape their love and service and giving would take as the decades sped by and new people came and the world kept changing.

We don't know what lies ahead either. We can only respond to what we see Christ doing in our lives, in this place and in the world. Like everyone who has participated in this community over its 89 years, we are stewards who hold All Saints' in trust, sharing and building its life and ministry while we're here. We receive what others have built and what we add to that is our gift to future generations.

This year we invite you to consider your stewardship pledge in the light of the love and service and gifts of the generations who have preceded us and to consider what our legacy might be for those who come after. The Spirit is alive and at work here, encouraging, challenging and calling us to go deeper, to give more generously of our gifts and our treasure to help bring God's love and grace to a world that is hungry and broken. Please pray and think and figure out what you can give to support the life and ministry of All Saints' Parish in 2012. It's a concrete way to give thanks to God for this place and its good work, to honor all those who have gone before us and to see All Saints' continue to grow in grace and service.