Let Us Celebrate
LET'S CELEBRATE our accomplishments over the past year through
our offerings of time, talent, and money.
These are some of the things we made happen by working together and
sharing our time and talent:
- Served as deacons, acolytes, altar guild, ushers, lectors, and
greeters.
- Used our musical talents as soloists and choir to enhance our
Sunday worship.
- Served as tellers, financial secretary, and treasurer.
- Provided flower arrangements for the altar each Sunday.
- Through our Pastor’s leadership, including her membership
on the Board of the ELCA's Division for Ministry, gave visibility
to Augustana and its mission at the local, regional, and national
Lutheran Church levels.
- Offered an adult education hour each Sunday that involved Bible
study and discussion on the themes of the Sunday lectionary readings
some
Sundays and a guest speaker other Sundays.
- Provided Sunday School classes for our children.
- Ran a week-long summer church camp for 35 children organized around
planning and rehearsing an original musical play based on the Biblical
story of Queen Esther.
- Sponsored two campers at Mar-lu-Ridge.
- Gathered food and distributed 10-12 Thanksgiving and
Christmas baskets to families in need and provided other assistance
to those in need
at Christmas.
- Served meals monthly at Martha’s Table and provided dinner
one evening to the residents of the night shelter at N Street Village.
- Promoted and purchased wide-ranging Gifts of Hope at Christmas
including calculators for students and bus-fare for job seekers.
- Organized and contributed items to a bazaar where neighborhood
families could purchase household items in good condition for $1.00-$2.00
and
clothing for even less. Donated proceeds of approximately $1,100
to Transitional Housing Corporation, matched by funds from Thrivent.
- Participated in sale of Lutheran World Relief coffee, which guarantees
fair prices to small farmers in Latin America and Africa.
- Contributed to Lutheran Social Services to brighten Christmas
for a needy family.
- Nurtured shrubs and flowers in our garden and maintained our grounds.
- Thoroughly cleaned the church kitchen twice during the year – and
women in the Latino congregation did the same.
- Coordinated collated, and prepared for mailing each issue
of The Augustanan.
- Provided office help twice weekly on a regular basis.
- Through our shepherding program hosted weekly hospitality
hour to promote post-worship fellowship and community-building.
- Put together welcome packets to distribute to apartment
buildings in the neighborhood.
- Worked intensively with our architect to complete the
design for accessibility and renovation.
These are some of the things we supported with our offerings of
money:
- Paid salaries of our pastor, music director, administrative assistant,
and building supervisor - and substitutes when needed.
- Accomplished the first phase of accessibility and renovation by
upgrading our electrical supply and air conditioning the church.
- Paid utility bills to keep our building open to the neighborhood
7 days a week and available to the Meridian Public Charter Middle
School.
- Provided funds for office supplies, postage, equipment servicing,
and other administrative support functions.
- Paid for worship supplies, including bread, wine, and oil for
candles.
- Paid for materials for Sunday School, adult education hour, and
church camp.
- Provided food coupons to hungry people and other assistance through
our pastor’s discretionary fund.
- Supported mission outreach and other programs of the Metro-DC
Synod and ELCA.
- Repaired our drinking fountains and replaced pipes that
had sprung leaks.
- Provided funds for servicing our heating and cooling equipment,
for servicing and tuning our organ, and for other building
and grounds
up-keep.
- Built storage closets and bookshelves and painted the library.
- Paid for weekly ads in The Washington Post, monthly ads in The
Intowner, and special ads in The Washington Blade.
- Supported the ELCA Hunger Program.
- Supported minority students at Lutheran seminaries through
Designated Advance Giving gifts.
And we did all of the above while at the same time increasing capital
campaign pledges to $555,544 and cash received for accessibility and
renovation during 2001 to 2003 to $370,000. None of the above would have been possible without the generous contributions
of time, talent, and money of so many people.
LET'S CELEBRATE - and let's offer our time, talent, and
money in abundance in 2004 so that we can make even more good things
happen this year! Next
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