We have good news and a great joy. WE PAID OUT ALL OF OUR APPORTIONMENTS!! What a great gift here at Christmas time to announce that. We want to thank everyone for your generosity and giving. This means that we have met our commitment to the United Methodist Church here in Texas, America and throughout the world 100%. Schools are supported, missionaries are sent, hospitals are able to care for those in need.

God bless everyone for your giving.

Oh and by the way, we need to give a special offering to the scholorship funds so that our students, and currently we wave two, can get financial support. We will take up a special offering this week but if you need to drop off a gift you can do so at the church office.

Don’t forget that you can give gifts to the church from I.R.A.’s, etc. to the church as a tax deduction. The main point on this is that you cannot cash and receive the money even for a moment. It has to go from your fund to the church directly. It is a great way to give to the church if you are able to do so.

Our advice is you really need to contact your financial advisor or C.P.A. or even an attorney to make sure you do it in a way that doesn’t become an income liability.

We will announce the financial numbers later as we still have some follow up to do but so far here is what we have that is a very positive result. We had 44 pledges so far. Of those, 22 increased their pledge, 19 stayed the same and only 3 reduced their pledge. That is outstanding!! Given the economy and the uncertainty of our world if we had seen more holding or reducing, it would not have been surprising.

Great job so far and thank you for all who have decided to go the extra mile. If you have not submitted a pledge card yet, please do so as soon a possible. This could be a very encouraging year.

Also, thanks go out to Jim Gwaltney for his efforts.

We are near to the goal of paying our Apportionments this year. We are a little short and need your help. If you can give a little more, we can reach our goal. Now the question is why should we? The Apportionments are our mission beyond our church into the world.

Now without going into a lot of details, let us look at just one example. Two of our kids, James Charles and Julian Merkle, are getting scholarships and grants to attend college. That is an example of how we give to support the Apportionments and the benefit comes back to us. There are other examples as well. Take the hurricanes that struck some years ago Katrina and Rita. While most agencies and even some churches have pulled up and are long gone, we Methodists are still there and we will be until the job is done.

When we pay our share, that is what happens. When we fail, we can’t do as much. Imagine if we had to tell a student, “Sorry no money.” Imagine if we had to tell the victims of another disaster, “Gosh, if you would have only been in Katrina we would have helped but this year, sorry.”

Now, if you can, give a bit more and be sure to identify it as “Apportionments” and every penny will go into the funds. Let’s meet our goal and celebrate the generosity of our church.

IT’S COMING NOVEMBER 22ND. GET READY!!

Dick Young from the Texas Methodist Foundation addressed the Administrative Council on Monday night about the Sanctuary Financial Campaign. This campaign, which is currently underway, is intended to provide financing for needed maintenance and refurbishing of the sanctuary building. He was introduced by Jason Bauerschlag , who along with Blair Russell, is heading up this campaign.

Mr. Young, whose great grandfather was a circuit rider in this community and was later a member of our church, challenged us to consider the similarity of restoring our sanctuary to the Old Testament stories about rebuilding the Temple.  He also related this to the Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations and how this project will help us achieve radical hospitality, passionate worship, intentional faith development, and risk-taking missions through the practice of extravagant generosity.   

During the 5 Practices, the sermon on Extravagant Generosity included giving eggs to be filled with money and then the ladies from out Kids Under Construction (after school care) Wesley Academy (pre-school and mother’s day out) and Tweens (our older elementary Wednesday program) would have an Easter egg hunt. We did it this past Sunday as a part of our Palm Sunday experiences.

We are proud to report the result. The ladies get to divide $1,153 dollars!! The point of th sermon which wasn’t concluded until yesterday was that when we work together and when we gather what we have, pennies, dimes, and yes an occasional check add up.

We feel it was a great success.

Don’t forget that a few weeks ago in the Extravagant Generosity sermon eggs were handed out and taken home. Remember that we are to fill them with money, any amount, and bring them to church on Palm Sunday. The directors of The Wesley Academy, Kids Under Construction and Tweeners will get to hunt for the eggs and divide the funds. So if you haven’t started filling your egg, start now. If you weren’t here that Sunday, just get one of those plastic eggs and fill it. Be sure to tape it so that it won’t fall out. Then bring it to the church before Palm Sunday. I have a few now but we will take them all.

 We will have fun watching the ladies scramble to find the eggs!!

The fifth and final week is here. We have been in prayer and study for four weeks as a church studying the 5 Practices. Week five is about Extravagant Generosity. Now we have to talk about money.  Many people don’t like us to do that within the church.  It seems to them to be too crass.

Bologna.

Usually those who think that are the ones not giving all that much in the first place. Those who give generously usually are looking for direction and purpose. They are hungry for God through the church in how, where and when they should give.

I often talk with folks about money. Just like in the days of Jesus ( who laked about money a lot), we spend a lot of time talking about money in our lives as well.  So let me give three principles I live with.

First, tithe. It is the principle the Bible teaches. In fact, Cathy and I give over 10%. Now it does not all go to the church. Someone once did the math and if we all tithed in this church we would easily have an income exceeding $848,000!! The team studying the issue estimates that only 10% of our church tithes.

Second, Pay the church first and live off the rest. Again I can assure you that you will find that everything will get paid and done. It’s just that buying that flat screed TV may heave to wait another month or two.

Third, get rid of debt. I use credit cards for almost everything. Most of the time I don’t even have money on me. I don’t even carry a check book most of the time. What we do is every time we charge something we enter it into the check registry as if we wrote a check. When the bill comes in, we pay it off in full. It gets rid of the interest charges. Yes it is true that I have to borrow from the bank for things like cars. It is unavoidable. However, we pay off even those loans early.  It is remarkable feeling of freedom a liberty to not owe others.

So again let me restate the three principles: Tithe, put the church first and pay down or off debt. It will improve your generous spirit. Who knows. you may even find ways to give a little extra.

Peace and grace. Reed

What a wonderful Sunday we had with our commitments this week. Here is an update. SO far we have had 4 new pledges and 30 increased pledges amounting to$38,862 in new expected income!! That is great. As of this posting, we can expect $329,981 for income to the church the largest amount ever. With our un-pledged giving and other income sources to the church, we should see 94.5% of our budget underwritten before we begin the year.

Plus we still are hearing from our members and their plans for next year. We feel that we will only go up from here. Great job and watch for more details as they come out. Special thanks to Lee Auvenshine for his efforts on the campaign and to Rev. Bruce Carpenter for helping to lead us.