This week
11/05/13 05:49
This week the woodchucks spent a half-day splitting firewood. They’ll be at it again this morning. The overwhelming mountain of unsplit logs that occupied the volleyball court is now almost gone. The rows of neatly stacked split firewood are expanding. The team will finish the wood in the volleyball court and move on to the wood at the edge of the lot today. There is plenty of good natured joking and laughter as they work.
This week ten members of our congregation met to rough out priorities for a pilot capital funds drive. We outlined roughly $100,000 in needed work that should be accomplished this year. We talked of other priorities going forward. The theme “Sustaining the Mission, Shaping the Vision” was adopted. We don’t want a capital funds drive for our building to in any way limit our outreach ministries. We will start with things that are necessary to keep our mission moving forward and engage the congregation in a process of identifying priorities for future projects. This is one committee meeting to which I look forward. The leaders are energetic, focused and stay on task. They have a bright attitude about the future of the church.
This week the women decorated and set up for their spring tea. There are new and freshly pressed tablecloths on the tables, decorations around the room, and everything appears to be ready. Tickets have been sold, guests have been invited, and entertainment has been planned. As they worked they were enjoying being together and anticipating a good time today.
This week the stained glass group showed some of their completed pieces and started cutting glass for some pieces with angels in them. The group started making all straight cuts in their glass and pieces that were geometric. These days I see more curves and complex shapes. The bright colors are combined with some dark, smoky glass for dramatic effects.
This week our main office computer started to malfunction. The solution was to completely erase the hard drive, reinstall the system and applications. That took most of a day. Our backup scheme worked perfectly. No data was lost. Business continued as the computer was reconfigured and brought back online. It was a frustrating event, but we weathered it without missing an e-mail or slowing production of our bulletins or other important papers that flow through our office. We were grateful to have our main database on the cloud so that functions like making the deposit, updating directories and the like are not dependent upon a single machine.
This week we completed and mailed the final version of the photo directory of our congregation. Even as it goes to press it is becoming obsolete as our congregation grows and changes. We did our best to produce a snapshot of where we are as a congregation, but we didn’t order too many copies. There were days when a photo directory every five years gave an accurate picture of the congregation. We’re growing and changing too quickly for that. This will be our last photo directory done by an outside group. From now on we’ll be producing our own photo directories and have an on-demand system.
This week our congregation received new members that pushed our official membership above 600. The number is symbolic. In its 135-year history the congregation has never been able to sustain membership above 600. Our size marks a slightly different way of doing business as a church and requires that we view ourselves as the kind of congregation where there is too much going on for any individual member to participate in every event or activity. At the same time, we know that the meaning of membership is shifting in our culture and we need to look to new numeric such as attendance, participation, and mission to measure success and failure as a congregation.
This week the Kerygma Class completed another successful Bible Study. They plan to take a summer break before tackling new studies in the fall. The number of biblically literate, theologically sophisticated lay persons in the congregation continues to grow.
This week the Department of Education adopted themes and roughed out outlines for their own curriculum for Vacation Bible School. These days we have discovered that we are capable of producing curriculum that not only is of higher quality that what is available from denominations and commercial vendors, it is custom tailored to our congregation.
This week our adult choir held its last Wednesday rehearsal before summer break. The ensemble will sing for two more Sundays and after Pentecost we will switch to soloists and ensembles for worship music. The schedule for summer music is nearly full with just a few more weeks yet to be filled. The choir will be singing “Great Day” featuring soloist Jami Lynn this Sunday. Jami has been so busy with her recording career and touring that we haven’t seen as much of her as we’d like, so it is a treasure to have her home. Still, the entire ensemble produces professional quality music every week. The amount of talent in our choir loft takes my breath away.
This week we welcomed a new participant in an expanding program of widening the welcome in partnership with Black Hills Works. There are transportation problems to be solved, but our congregation is becoming increasingly accessible for people with disabilities. The leadership of Ben and Dee Anderson is helping us to expand our outreach and deepen our worshiping community.
This week the church drama group did a full rehearsal of their latest production, the youth group celebrated a year of ministry with a mini-golf outing, the watercolor society met to paint, the suicide survivor group provided meaningful relationships, the bulletins were printed, folded and stapled, the phones were answered, visits were made in the nursing home, the spiritual practices group met, church chat discussed a book, new energy-efficient light bulbs were put in our choir loft, the lawn got mowed, the church staff reviewed hymns and schedules for the summer, a care conference was held, and we took a special offering for our church camp.
And that is just one week. It was a typical week.
Those who are predicting the death of the church in our generation are welcome to join us for a week or a month or for as long as they’d like. There is certainly enough work to keep us going for a lifetime.
This week ten members of our congregation met to rough out priorities for a pilot capital funds drive. We outlined roughly $100,000 in needed work that should be accomplished this year. We talked of other priorities going forward. The theme “Sustaining the Mission, Shaping the Vision” was adopted. We don’t want a capital funds drive for our building to in any way limit our outreach ministries. We will start with things that are necessary to keep our mission moving forward and engage the congregation in a process of identifying priorities for future projects. This is one committee meeting to which I look forward. The leaders are energetic, focused and stay on task. They have a bright attitude about the future of the church.
This week the women decorated and set up for their spring tea. There are new and freshly pressed tablecloths on the tables, decorations around the room, and everything appears to be ready. Tickets have been sold, guests have been invited, and entertainment has been planned. As they worked they were enjoying being together and anticipating a good time today.
This week the stained glass group showed some of their completed pieces and started cutting glass for some pieces with angels in them. The group started making all straight cuts in their glass and pieces that were geometric. These days I see more curves and complex shapes. The bright colors are combined with some dark, smoky glass for dramatic effects.
This week our main office computer started to malfunction. The solution was to completely erase the hard drive, reinstall the system and applications. That took most of a day. Our backup scheme worked perfectly. No data was lost. Business continued as the computer was reconfigured and brought back online. It was a frustrating event, but we weathered it without missing an e-mail or slowing production of our bulletins or other important papers that flow through our office. We were grateful to have our main database on the cloud so that functions like making the deposit, updating directories and the like are not dependent upon a single machine.
This week we completed and mailed the final version of the photo directory of our congregation. Even as it goes to press it is becoming obsolete as our congregation grows and changes. We did our best to produce a snapshot of where we are as a congregation, but we didn’t order too many copies. There were days when a photo directory every five years gave an accurate picture of the congregation. We’re growing and changing too quickly for that. This will be our last photo directory done by an outside group. From now on we’ll be producing our own photo directories and have an on-demand system.
This week our congregation received new members that pushed our official membership above 600. The number is symbolic. In its 135-year history the congregation has never been able to sustain membership above 600. Our size marks a slightly different way of doing business as a church and requires that we view ourselves as the kind of congregation where there is too much going on for any individual member to participate in every event or activity. At the same time, we know that the meaning of membership is shifting in our culture and we need to look to new numeric such as attendance, participation, and mission to measure success and failure as a congregation.
This week the Kerygma Class completed another successful Bible Study. They plan to take a summer break before tackling new studies in the fall. The number of biblically literate, theologically sophisticated lay persons in the congregation continues to grow.
This week the Department of Education adopted themes and roughed out outlines for their own curriculum for Vacation Bible School. These days we have discovered that we are capable of producing curriculum that not only is of higher quality that what is available from denominations and commercial vendors, it is custom tailored to our congregation.
This week our adult choir held its last Wednesday rehearsal before summer break. The ensemble will sing for two more Sundays and after Pentecost we will switch to soloists and ensembles for worship music. The schedule for summer music is nearly full with just a few more weeks yet to be filled. The choir will be singing “Great Day” featuring soloist Jami Lynn this Sunday. Jami has been so busy with her recording career and touring that we haven’t seen as much of her as we’d like, so it is a treasure to have her home. Still, the entire ensemble produces professional quality music every week. The amount of talent in our choir loft takes my breath away.
This week we welcomed a new participant in an expanding program of widening the welcome in partnership with Black Hills Works. There are transportation problems to be solved, but our congregation is becoming increasingly accessible for people with disabilities. The leadership of Ben and Dee Anderson is helping us to expand our outreach and deepen our worshiping community.
This week the church drama group did a full rehearsal of their latest production, the youth group celebrated a year of ministry with a mini-golf outing, the watercolor society met to paint, the suicide survivor group provided meaningful relationships, the bulletins were printed, folded and stapled, the phones were answered, visits were made in the nursing home, the spiritual practices group met, church chat discussed a book, new energy-efficient light bulbs were put in our choir loft, the lawn got mowed, the church staff reviewed hymns and schedules for the summer, a care conference was held, and we took a special offering for our church camp.
And that is just one week. It was a typical week.
Those who are predicting the death of the church in our generation are welcome to join us for a week or a month or for as long as they’d like. There is certainly enough work to keep us going for a lifetime.