Common Life Share: What Is It?

The common life share, formerly known as the mission share pledge, is the money the diocese receives from churches to support diocesan work. This year the convention changed the formula from a 10 percent minimum with a 20 percent target to a 10.5 percent flat request with a voluntary ability to pay more than that for specific projects. The executive council selected these four projects for the overage: Showers of Blessings, Episcopal Youth Event, Coalition of Schools and the North Park Project.  

For any church offering more than 10.5 percent, it can choose one of the four projects to support. The amount given above 10.5 percent amounted to $18,000.

“It was tremendously helpful to the budget committee to have the executive council’s priorities,” said Canon Julie Young, diocesan treasurer and canon for finance and administration. “The job of the executive council is to set priorities for the diocese, which helped us allocate the budget more effectively.”

“It offers churches some sense of ownership over and above the minimum,” said Judy Cater, executive council member from Holy Cross, Carlsbad. “They have choice in what they support.”

The Rev. Joseph Dirbas, executive council member and rector of All Souls’, said that the  point of changing the name from mission share pledge to common life share “is to draw us together so that when churches write the check, it’s not a diocesan tax, it’s about supporting our life together.”