The Vestry and Finance Committee met August 21 in a marathon session to do a mid-year review of our budget and finances. Overall we are doing very well and continue to be blessed by all of YOUR generous support!! Thank you!!! Our pledges, plate (contributions at services), and online (Paypal) donations are above budget (YAY!!) and so are the globe donations which go directly to our community ministries. We are also using your money to earn money (tax free because we are a non-profit) through our newly established high yield savings account, CDs, and our Vanguard account (endowment fund). Our expenses are within budget despite repairs to our oldest HVAC system (sanctuary and narthex) and repairs to the organ (generously paid for by Don Schimmel before he passed away) and we are continuing to streamline our financial systems with bill.pay. We are targeting areas for saving money as well. One example is the expansion of our Servant Keeper app to provide on-line giving where you can add the fees for processing donations to your donated amount so the church is not paying them as we do for PayPal which does not have that option. We will be spotlighting this new program soon!! As always we are so grateful for the many volunteers who work behind the scene to collect, count, and record your donations and pay our bills!! Hard copies of Vestry meeting minutes are available on the desk in the Narthex so you can stay informed!
The Vestry as always wishes to connect and/or reconnect with everyone in our congregation. We have updated our directory (ask for a copy!!). We are also interested in identifying everyone's gifts and ways to allow those gifts to work amongst us. We want to do more 'listening': asking people to share their stories one-on-one. Let me, or anyone on the Vestry, know if you would like to participate and share in the blessings you give and receive! Also there are links to recordings available from the Action in Montgomery (AIM) listening training that are very helpful!! Links to resources from AIM sessions in this folder: Summer Core Team Training
Finding strength in collective storytelling: Whenever Jesus is asked a question, he answers with a story, a parable. “He did not say anything to them without using a parable” (Matthew 13:34).
We tell our stories because all of us have survived something, because stories are signposts from the past that give us clues about the future. Our stories are a witness to the next generation and an opportunity to understand the universal as well as the particular in tales of trauma, healing, and survival.
Barbara A. Holmes, Crisis Contemplation: Healing the Wounded Village (Albuquerque, NM: CAC Publishing, 2021), 110–111.