Our Third Quarter Ministry Priorities

Dear Fellow Saints of God Called to Serve, Praise and Grow:

Your leadership is very grateful for our accomplishments of the first half of 2006. We are glad to announce that we met all our ministry and mission priorities! We accomplished this by using the money given in 2005 plus your donations in 2006. (See the enclosed balance sheet) The 2nd quarter priorities that were fully funded were: (rounded off)
1. $9600 for Utilities and insurance
2. $54609 for Staff Support that included salaries, synod assembly expenses, benefits and administrative expenses
3. $4800 for our support of Synod Benevolence
4. $1592 for our Stewardship Team that included repairs to the air conditioning system.
5. $1117 for our Spiritual Life Ministry that included instrument maintenance, music, Easter Services and publications
6 $4661 for our Discipleship Ministries that included subsidies for our children’s summer camping, National Youth Gathering, adult education and Sunday School
7 $1092 for our Lay Leadership Ministry that included sending 3 voting members to the synod assembly
8. $1241 for our Care Ministries that included $1000.00 to NAM and Interfaith Care Partners
9. $ 5000.00 for our From the Heart Appeal (this is a reimbursable expense from the appeal funds)

We want to thank you for your commitment to working together as the people of God to do God’s work. Without your support we could not have done all of this.

Now we turn to the next quarter(July-September) and we see the challenge ahead of us. We are confident based on past and current giving patterns that we can fund our top four priorities. These are:
1. Our facilities maintenance needs. This we estimate to be $16390 and includes insurance, utilities, and minor repair for the air conditioning system.
2. Our staff support. We estimate that this, including office administration, will cost about $51,000. This budget supports two full time people with benefits and 6 part-time with no benefits.
3. Our support of the synod of $4800.00
4. Our discipleship ministries: It is vital that we plan on spending $3756 for Sunday School and confirmation curriculum for the coming 06-07 year. We are converting to new on-line program published by Augsburg-Fortress that will reduce costs in this area and provide more resources for teachers and students. The discipleship team is very excited about what this program can do for our community’s growth in faith.

These next priorities are also important, but their accomplishment will depend on how we respond with our personal stewardship. The formula is very simple, The more we give, the more of God’s work we are able to do. We give not out of pressure, but because we see the vision and want the joy of seeing these visions become reality. We also understand how God richly blesses us and we share this abundance with others.
The next priorities are:
5. Care. $900.00. This includes support of NAM and other local social ministries
6. Lay Leadership. $400.00, This includes funds for recognition and support of our Lay Leadership and meal at our September 10 congregation meeting.
7. Spiritual Life. $600 This includes money for music and altar guild supplies.
8. Stewardship- $3026 for cleaning of Ministry Center Carpets, nave and sanctuary chairs. $7600 for resealing of our parking lot.

We thank you in advance for joining us in giving inorder to meet all the priories for this next quarter. We look forward to sharing with you in the next mailing how well we responded to God’s call. We are honored to be your leaders and serve to do our best to move our congregation forward.

We also want to continue to thank all those who give their time and prayers to the work of our congregation. This is just as vital as the giving of our financial blessings.

Grace and Peace,

Your Council Leadership