Greetings,
February is just around the corner and mentally I am already thinking ahead to Lent and beyond. Before I completely get lost in the future I wanted to take a moment to highlight a couple of things happening right now.
First of all on Sunday we are having the United Parish Women lead worship. It is going to be a cool service lead by a variety of wonderful individuals. Please come and see what they have put together for us. Personally I appreciate their willingness to lead worship this week as it gives me a chance to simple be a worshipper for a change, thanks!
Second, I did need to take a moment to give you an update of the finances of the church and how things are going. We ended 2011 with basically nothing left in the checking account and two small obligations to pay, our commitments to GRV and Lakeview Good Samaritan. January is generally a difficult month financially because a lot of our quarterly payments are also due. For that reason we are currently looking at a very tight budget for the end of the month. We need another $1800 in offerings next week to meet our obligations going forward. On a good Sunday we do not have a problem collecting that, but on the 5th Sunday of the month we tend to collect less (because most of us give monthly and have already done so by that point). I am challenging us to use this fifth Sunday of the month as a challenge to give a little more to help the church out. I know things are not an easier for our personal finances as for the the church, but anything extra you can give makes a huge difference. We do not want to have to start not paying bills or making choices about what we cut back as a church. If you can help it would be greatly appreciated.
Finally I for those who were not at church on Sunday, we talked about spending time each day thinking about our joys and our concerns, celebrating what God has done for us and asking for God's help. I challenge each of us to spend some time in the remaining days this week doing that, praying to God and lifting up both the good and the bad, and trusting in God's grace to be with us throughout this week.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Jeff
