October 1, 2010
To Whom It May Concern:
Cape Coral First, like many of you, has been experiencing the difficulties of the economy while trying to do more ministry towards making disciples and transforming our community. This past year we were at a crossroads – do something different or face staff cuts.
Our church talked with Rev. Larry Sykora, a ministry colleague of The Columbia Partnership (www.TheColumbiaPartnership.org), about helping us with a stewardship campaign for our operating budget. Larry is an ordained elder from the Texas Annual Conference. He served churches there for 17 years, including founding a thriving church in Houston. He was so gifted at leading his churches in stewardship that his bishop encouraged him to develop his calling in that direction. Twenty-five years and 175 churches later, he’s still going strong. Larry is someone who loves Jesus dearly, has authentic warmth, and can also have great fun with ministry.
Larry helped me and our church to realize we weren’t truly engaged in stewardship. We were fundraising – and there is a difference. At the end of our stewardship campaign with Larry we were blown away with our results: a 64% increase in financial commitments to the church. The total number of commitments to the church over doubled. In fact, we had more people make first time commitments for 2010 than we had in total commitments for 2009. It also helped our congregation to coalesce around a common goal and better understand God’s dreams for our mission and ministry.
Larry also led a capital campaign for a renovation and construction project on our campus. This campaign has enabled us to completely renovate the west end of our campus including achieving a long-held dream of creating a Christian pre-school so that we can help make disciples at an even earlier age. His leadership and assistance has had an enormous kingdom-impact at Cape Coral First, and we are grateful for his guidance.
I would be happy to talk about our experience with Larry should you have any questions. God bless you and your ministries!
All God’s love,
Jay Therrell
Senior Pastor
