United Thank Offering Coordinator Named
Episcopal News Service. June 16, 1977 [77215]
New York, N. Y. -- A member of a New York City parish who has a wide background in church and business programming has been named coordinator of the United Thank Offering of the Episcopal Church.
Judith Gillespie will succeed Mrs. Alice Emery who has been named Executive for the Church in Society section of the Church Center staff, Presiding Bishop John M. Allin announced this week.
For the last year, Miss Gillespie has been working at Holy Trinity Church to implement a development and program plan that grew out of a major self-study that parish undertook in 1975. She will join the Episcopal Church Center staff on July 5.
The coordinator is responsible for interpreting and enlisting participation in the offering which is allocated annually for mission and ministry projects throughout the Anglican Communion. She is required to do the research on grant requests, provide channels and accountability for responsible grant-making and assist in planning the Triennial Meeting of the Women of the Church which brings together hundreds of Church women and men every three years at the time of the meeting of the Church's General Convention.
The United Thank Offering combines an emphasis on prayer and thanksgiving with an offering for mission work and in recent years more than $1 million has been offered annually for work ranging from purchase of a bus to transport elderly in Appalachia through support of the projects that have emerged from the Anglican Communion's Partners in Mission consultations.
In speaking of the job, Miss Gillespie noted that "too often, we really don't seem to have time to say thank you and this is a concrete way to observe that in our worship life."
She added that she is excited about the post because "it is a chance to pull together my business experience and my volunteer work and translate them into an attempt to deal with the problems of individuals and groups and to help make life more livable for people."
Until two years ago Miss Gillespie had been a business executive responsible for developing and implementing training programs for sales people, designing and writing promotional material, audio visual displays, and budget control.
At the same time, she continued a heavy schedule of volunteer work with churches in training, Christian education and youth work, first as a Presbyterian and -- since nine years ago -- as an Episcopalian.
Two years ago, she left the business world to seek a career in which she could use the skills and interests she had developed as a volunteer to make a greater impact on problems she saw around her. "In business, you develop a distance from social problems," she noted, "and I found that while most of my time was devoted to my job, most of my interest went to the volunteer work I was doing in the Church. "
As a member of Holy Trinity she was instrumental in a year-long self-study that resulted in a plan to develop the way in which that spacious old church property on the upper East Side was used. She was asked to coordinate the study and, for the last year, has been trying to develop programs, recruit groups to use the buildings, raise building revenues, and recruit and train volunteers for an expanding program of Church outreach. She also designed a new promotion campaign for a stewardship drive the parish held in the fall.
Mrs. Emery has been on the Church Center Staff since 1970. She will work with Miss Gillespie for an unspecified transition period before moving to the Church in Society post in which she will succeed the Rt. Rev. Richard B. Martin. Bishop Martin will be taking over the Education for Ministry staff section which will be vacated by Mrs. Ruth Cheney who is retiring in July.