The F2C committee would like to remind the congregation of Bethany that the mortgage closing date is getting close. That means this is the time to consider any up-front contributions you could make. Each dollar allows the mortgage to be lowered just a bit more and means Bethany can devote more future income toward ministry initiatives.
Following up on that last post about how the Freed to Connect campaign is doing monetarily, here’s a letter that was sent out to Bethany members updating them on how things are going from the campaign chair.
April 12, 2007
Easter Greetings to You, Fellow Members of Bethany!
This is a great time of year to share good news. In addition to the wonderful news of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the members of Bethany have much to celebrate.
The response by our members to our Freed to Connect stewardship campaign was outstanding. Over $1,000,000 was pledged and over one third of that has already come in.
As planned, we will take 75% of our net Freed to Connect contributions to date and add that to the net land sale proceeds to pay down our mortgage. As of the end of March, our Freed to Connect contributions, minus expenses, totaled about $282,000. This means our mortgage will be reduced by over $211,000 as a result of the Freed to Connect stewardship campaign.
Please note that there is still time to make a contribution of which 75% will go directly to paying down the mortgage. These gifts need to be received as soon as possible.
If you have pledged and/or given to the Freed to Connect campaign, we have included a statement with this mailing. Thank you for your contributions! Please call Laurie Zimmerman in the church office if you have questions about your statement. If you are not yet actively giving to Freed to Connect, please join the effort. Please continue to pray for the success of Freed to Connect.
The Freed to Connect stewardship campaign also gave us an opportunity to gather input from our church family and good things are coming out of that hard work. Take a moment to look at our new Member Care Society brochure. Wonderful programs are in the works and there are many areas for you to get involved. Please join the Member Care Society for a kick-off dinner on Wednesday, April 25th.
Those of us on the Freed to Connect Continuation Committee are now in the process of staying in touch with all members and especially our new members. We will soon have a progress poster in the narthex so watch as we move toward our goal!
Thanks again for your participation in the Freed to Connect campaign.
In The Risen Christ,
Greg Jordan, Freed to Connect Continuation Chairperson
Been a while since there was a solid update on Freed to Connect but the campaign committee has just released the following monetary update:
Total Dollars Committed: $1,055,934
Total Dollars Collected as of 3/31/07: $342,834
Number of Commitments: 211
# at/above expectations as of 3/31/07: 174
# below expectations as of 3/31/07: 37
It’s truly a blessing to Bethany’s ministry that so many members have committed to making the campaign a success. Doing so will allow the church to continue its mission to connect people to Christ for years to come.
It’s been a while without a good update here but last Sunday Don Lohrentz, co-chair of the Freed to Connect campaign, gave a short speech at the end of the service on how things are going. Here’s the latest from Don:
This is a time for celebrating in our church. Christmas, Epiphany, and today we celebrate our Lord’s baptism. A good time to celebrate some of the accomplishments of our “Freed to Connect” campaign.
The F2C campaign’s first phase is drawing to a close. The next phase, the “continuation phase” is beginning.
The first phase required many Bethany members to work on various events during the last four months. Dozens and dozens of members did things like; hosting Enrichments Gatherings, stuffing envelopes, making phones calls, decorating the PAC for the dessert and banquet, lead one of hours of the prayer vigil, lead Bible Studies, run the children’s party on banquet night, create professional materials like the video and brochure, etc. If you worked on the F2C campaign in any capacity, please stand so that we can recognize your contributions.
We also celebrate God’s gifts given through our members’ pledges to F2C. Our pledges total approximately $ 1,040,000 with pledges still coming in. This means we will have about $750,000 to contribute to paying down the mortgage, some $150,000 for ministries here at Bethany, and $100,000 for foreign missions. We know from our work in Sudan, Madagascar, Russia, etc. that $100,000 can do a lot of good in these countries.
We can also celebrate the fact that nearly $250,000 of the pledged amount has already been received. Three-quarters of this can be used in conjunction with the proceeds from the land sale to greatly reduce our mortgage.
One last point. We know some of our members intend to pledge, but have lost their pledge cards. There are cards on the table near the entrance to the sanctuary or on the Welcome Desk in the narthex. It will be helpful if you submit a pledge card as soon as possible.
Thank you and God bless you.
Click here to sign up for the Freed to Connect banquet on December 2nd at Bethany.
Just sign up for the “Group” and you should be able to sign up for you and your family. Leave a comment here if you have any problems.
This weekend will see the final two Enrichment Gatherings, both of which are taking place at Bethany itself. If you haven’t attended a gathering yet, this is the perfect opportunity. The first one will be this Saturday immediately after the evening worship service.
While it’s not specifically about the Freed to Connect campaign, this is something that could be enormously beneficial to Bethany as a whole. Goodsearch is a Yahoo-powered search engine that donates a portion of of its search-ad revenue to charity. And now you can Goodsearch to support Bethany. Just follow these simple instructions:
1. In the “Who do you GoodSearch for?” box, search for Bethany Lutheran Church.
2. Several will come up so be sure to choose the one with (Naperville, IL) next to it.
3. In the top search box just run your search like you would through any other search engine.
Every time you run a search, Bethany gets a penny! While that not much in and of itself it can add up pretty quickly, and every little bit helps both the church and the school.That’s about it. I’ve whipped up this slide set to take a look at if my instructions aren’t clear.
I can’t get the slideshow to embed, so click here to view a collection of photos from the recent Bethany prayer vigil.
If you go to the “Calendar and Schedule” page that you see just below the title of this blog, you’ll see that it’s been updated with a Google Calendar marking at least some of the upcoming events for Freed to Connect, as well as holidays and worship service times and such. Hopefully this will be of use to most of you.
I meant to mention this yesterday but, well, the time slips away.
Beginning actually about an hour ago and continuing until tomorrow (Saturday 10/21) at noon, Bethany will be hosting a 24-hour prayer vigil. There are prayer request cards submitted by members that can serve as the basis for your prayers or just come speak to the Lord about what’s in your heart. Some hours will be more formal than others, with music or leadership by the pastors. Even if you just have a few moments to come in, feel free to do so.
From Cantor Magness:
The Prayer Vigil starts in less than 24 hours. We have several meaningful events planned during the vigil.
1 - Every three hours, starting at noon, we’ll observe one of the historic prayer “offices” of the church. So if you’ve ever wanted to experience monastic life - check in every three hours throughout the Vigil!
2 - At the end of the first hour of the Vigil, all the day school children will form a prayer chain, and members of each class will offer special petitions.
3 - During 23 of the 24 hours, prayer & meditation will be enhanced with quiet background music provided by Bethany musicians. We thank Deniece Zinnecker, Trudy Medhurst, Lila Berger, Cheryl Magness, Susan Morrow, Susan Gavin, and John Prescott for helping us out with this.
4 - A couple of our Bible Study/Fellowship groups will be coming together and sort of “adopting” an hour of prayer: ROCK (youth group) at 6pm and Mens’ Bible Breakfast at 8am.
Whether you have signed up or not, we hope you will come and join us - even if you can only stay for a short time.
And, if you feel so moved - come and pray for several hours.
This promises to be an awesome experience and we look forward to joining with all of you in prayer through the One who has freed us from our shame and placed His name upon our hearts!
–Cantor Magness
