Stewardship Newsletter

Transcription

1 Stewardship Newsletter April Stewardship Emphasis Campaign Update At the beginning of this stewardship emphasis our congregation s leaders and their spouses were asked to attend a special meeting introducing For Such a Time as This. Those leaders included all the members of our emphasis leadership team, Church Council members, Future Needs Committee, lay ministers, our pastor, and staff. They and their spouses were then encouraged to prayerfully consider their own commitments to our special stewardship emphasis. We also visited with several families to discuss their hopes for Concordia. Plus, we've seen the early fruits of our presentations with the return of promise/pledge cards. So far we have received 18 cards. As of this date, the financial commitment on those pledge cards totals $33,300. A Rich Family in Our Church Thought provoking story of one family's efforts to be good stewards. 4 We give thanks to God for these gifts motivated by love. We hope that these offerings will serve as an encouragement to our congregation as all of us consider our response to the opportunity our Savior has placed before us.

2 1 For Such a Time as This Concordia Lutheran You're Invited Celebration Sunday Celebration Sunday is April 8th. This will be a special day to thank the Lord for his many blessings bestowed upon Concordia Lutheran Church and to thank the many members of the congregation for their gifts to the Lord of their time, talent, and financial support for our For Such a Time as This emphasis. What is the special stewardship emphasis? Concordia Lutheran Church has launched a special stewardship emphasis over the next 3 years. Gifts to this special emphasis will be over-and-above first fruit offerings in support of remodeling and expanding our facility. Why should we do this now? Now is the time to lay the foundation for strengthening our ministry. These foundational steps include: Remodeling and expanding our facilities for ministry. Unifying our congregation as one body of Christ Strengthening our congregational stewardship How much are we hoping to raise? It is our prayer that over the next 3 years we will raise $450,000 in cash gifts and three-year faith promise pledges. It will be a combined worship service at 11 AM, followed by a potluck luncheon, please sign up to bring something. All of our members are encouraged to attend this special event! We look forward to this celebration and fellowship opportunity! Promise / Pledge Cards Your participation starts with prayer and counting the blessings God s grace in Jesus brings into your life. With that as a starting point, every family has been given information on how they can participate. A promise/pledge card was part of the information provided in the packet you would have received at one of our presentations. If you didn't attend, we'll be dropping the packet off at your home, or mailing it. On Celebration Sunday you will be able to present your card indicating your initial gift and then a three-year promise to For Such a Time as This. Your initial gift may be given anytime. The most common plan for fulfilling the three-year promise is to make gift installments every week. However, gifts may also be given monthly or annually. You may also contribute gifts of property, stocks, life insurance and other securities if these options apply to you. Of course, there is no need to wait. As soon as you've prayerfully considered your gift, you can drop you promise/pledge card off in the Narthex in the letter box on the wall near Pastor's office. Q & A from Group Presentations During our Group Presentations, we collected quite a few questions and answers. Here are the highlights. Are we collecting the $450,000 before we start building? Collecting the pledges is the next step followed by working with lenders on a loan for the first phase. The pledges show our

3 Stewardship Newsletter April congregation's commitment to our building project. Once the loan is arranged, finalizing plans and building can start. So, the pledges will come first, followed by working with lenders, and then building. Actual donations will follow your pledge card commitment over the next three years. Where do I put my promise/pledge card when I've completed it? There is a promise/pledge card letter box in the Narthex near Pastor's office door. You can also provide it as part of Celebration Sunday on April 8. How long will this building project take? We estimate that the Master Plan may take ten years or more. But Phase 1 would start as soon as financing is in place. We will, of course keep you up to date on all building events and milestones. Will the building project improve the sanctuary acoustics? Probably not. The Master Plan calls for a new sanctuary with the current worship space being converted into the fellowship hall. So any investment in the current worship space would not be productive for the long term. This foresight is thanks to the great work from the Future Needs Committee in mapping out our overall plan so that we can be as cost effective as possible through the full building program. Is a direct deposit of my donation available? We are looking into offering such a service. Of course, there is also a bill pay program available through most banks. As we put in place a separate bank account for the capital campaign, we'll update you on the payment options. Do I need to provide two separate checks every Sunday, one for operating and one for building? One check will work fine. You can note in the memo space how much goes to each account. The promise/pledge card offers weekly and monthly payment options, can I pay bi-weekly or quarterly? Certainly. Please note your plans on the promise/pledge card. When should I start my building fund donation? Group Presentations Dennis Murawski supported by the Stewardship Committee conducted three group presentations on April 3 and 7. He discussed the reasons behind the campaign, our building program, and the ways that you can support For Such a Time as This. Packets of information about the campaign along with promise/pledge cards were distributed. If you weren't able to attend our Commitment Team, led by JoAnn Truelock, will be delivering the packets to your door. Watch for it. If you'd rather not wait. You can find the overview brochure online at Concordia Brochure and the Promise/Pledge Card. If you selected weekly or monthly, please start your donations in May. If you selected annually, please start in

4 For Such a Time as This Concordia Lutheran The Rich Family in Our Church by Anonymous Calendar Celebration Sunday April 8 one worship service where we provide our promise cards followed by lunch. Thank You Sunday May 5 worship service with announcement of results Mark Your Calendars I ll never forget the summer of I was 14, my little sister, Ocy, 1, and my older sister Darlene, 16. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was to do without many things. My dad had died years before, leaving Mom with seven school kids to rear and no money. By 1946 my older sisters were married, and my brothers had left home. A month before Easter, the pastor of our church announced that a special Easter offering would be taken to help a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially. When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month. That would allow us to save $0 of our grocery money for the offering. Then we thought that if we kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible and didn t listen to the radio, we d save money of that month s electric bill. Darlene got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as possible, and both of us babysat for everyone we could. For 15 cents, we could buy enough cotton loops to make three potholders to sell for $1.00. We made $0 on potholders. That month was one of the best of our lives. Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. At night we d sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them. We had about 80 people in the church, so we figured that whatever amount of money we had to give the offering would surely be 0 times that much. After all, every Sunday the Pastor had reminded everyone to save for the sacrificial offering. The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $0 bills and one $10 bill for all our change. We ran all the way home to show Mom and Darlene. We had never had so much money before. That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We didn t care that we wouldn t have new clothes for Easter; we had $70 for the sacrificial offering. We could hardly wait to get to church. On Easter morning rain was pouring. We didn t own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile from our home, but it didn t seem to matter how wet we got. Darlene had cardboard in her shoes to fill the holes. The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet. But we sat in church proudly. I heard some teenagers talking about the Smith girls having on their old dresses. I looked at them in new clothes and I felt so rich. When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were sitting in the second row. From the front, Mom put in the $10 bill, each of us put in a $0 bill. As we walked home after church, we sang all the way. At lunch, Mom had a surprise for us. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled Easter eggs with our fried potatoes! 4

5 Stewardship Newsletter April Later that afternoon, the minister drove up in his car. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand. We asked her what it was, but she didn t say a word. She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money. There were three crisp $0 bills, one $10, and seventeen $1s. Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn t talk, just sat and stared at the floor. We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor people. We kids had such a happy life that we felt sorry for anyone who didn t have our mom and dad for parents and a house full of brothers and sisters and other kids visiting constantly. I know we didn t have a lot of things that other people had, but I never thought we were poor. That Easter Day I found out we were. The minister had brought us the money for the poor family, so we must be poor. I didn t like feeling poor. I looked at my dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed that I didn t want to go back to church. Everyone there probably knew we were poor! I thought about my school friends and felt terribly embarrassed to be thought of as poor. We sat in silence for a long time. Then it got dark, and we went to bed. All that week, we girls went to school and came home, and no one talked much. Finally on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We didn t know. We d never known we were poor. We didn t want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom said we had to. The joy of what we had done, of sacrificing and saving had been taken away from us. Although it was a sunny day, we didn t talk on our way to church as we usually did. At church that Sunday, we had a missionary speaker. He talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun-dried bricks, but they needed money to buy roofs. He said $100 would put a roof on a church. The minister said, Can t we all sacrifice to help these poor people? We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week. Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to Ocy, who gave it to me. And I dropped it into the offering. When the offering was counted, the minister announced it was a little over $100. The missionary was excited. He wasn t expecting such a large offering from our small congregation. He said you must have some rich people in this church. Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of that little over $100. We were the rich family in the church! From that day on, I ve never been poor again. Leadership Workshop In March we conducted a leadership workshop for all the members of our Leadership Team for the emphasis, Church Council members, Future Needs Committee, lay ministers, our pastor, and staff. They and their spouses were then encouraged to prayerfully consider their own commitments to our special stewardship emphasis. Thank you Chef Bob and Katy for the wonderful meal Pastor approved and applauded! We had been given back the joy of sacrificial giving. Did the family in this story demonstrate the attitudes of willingness to give? Did they have a desire to give? Did they have an eagerness to give? Absolutely! They willingly gave once, only to have their contribution returned in greater proportion, and then turned around and willingly gave it again. They were excited to give based on the many blessings they felt God had given them. 5

6 For Such a Time as This We believe that God's grace will abound "And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God." Corinthians 9: 8, 11 Concordia Lutheran Church Where God's Love Touches People's Lives Stewardship Newsletter April 9 019