Thanks To All Who Helped Make Our Christmas Celebration The Best!
Many thanks to many Grace membersthat worked together to ensure another memorable and beautiful Christmas Eve worship service. Don't have the exact attendance figures, but I'm guessing about 250 over the two services. Attendance at 5 was a bit more than at 9.
Reminder of Altered Worship Schedule This Weekend
Don't' forget that this weekend is a special LIFT observance of the First Sunday After Christmas using an order for Lessons and Carols. All LIFT congregation members are encouraged to attend one of two services:
- Saturday, 4:00 pm at Grace
- Sunday, 10:00 am at Emmanuel Lindsey Emmanuel is exactly 8.3 miles west of Grace on West State street and US 20. You can view Google driving directions HERE.
IRS Raises Mileage Rate for 2024
The Internal Revenue Service today issued the 2024 optional standard mileage rates used to calculate the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical or moving purposes. Beginning on Jan. 1, 2024, the standard mileage rates for the use of a car (also vans, pickups or panel trucks) will be: 67 cents per mile driven for business use, up 1.5 cents from 2023. Your can read the IRS Web Page which provides more details HERE.
Our Learning Track for Stewardship for All Seasons: Please Read and Respond!
This is a repeat from last week!
Our participation in Stewardship for All Seasons gives us access to a learning track which can increase our effectiveness as a congregation. Registration open to anyone in the congregation. The Stewardship Team has chosen
Option 2: Volunteer Recruitment and Retention - Best Practices
Congregations have long battled the 80/20 rule: that 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. Now it is even harder, as many congregations report that 80/20 rule is becoming a 90/10 rule.
In this volunteer track for SAS, we will focus on the recruitment, retention and stewardship of church volunteers, as well as growing leaders in your congregation and identifying successful stewardship team members.
All tracks will be on Thursday at noon. The session dates and content are as follows:
- Jan 25: Overview--how do we recruit volunteers? We will consider the process of determining our volunteer needs, preparing recruitment materials, identifying prospective volunteers and how ministry team leaders go about inviting their service.
- Feb 22: Writing job or service descriptions. You will bring a list of volunteer opportunities at your ministry to this meeting and we will walk through how we write a job or service description together.
- March 28: How to retain volunteers. In this meeting we will talk about how to make your volunteers’ experiences worthwhile and fulfilling. We will review check ins, conflict resolution, continuing education and gratitude gatherings.
- April 25: How to grow volunteer leadership in your congregation. One of our goals in refining our volunteer program is to raise up new leaders and maintain a leadership pipeline. We will discuss how to identify potential leaders, give them varied experiences throughout your ministry, and invite them into leadership roles.
To register for this track, click HERE and scroll down to Option 2, and enter your name and email address. You will receive an email confirming your registration, and an email reminder with the Zoom link within 24 hours of each session of the Track. Then enter the dates and time (12:00 noon) on your calendar.
2024 - The Year of Rest
Bishop Daniel and the NWOS Staff have developed a specific theme for each of the years of Bishop Daniel's tenure as bishop. Last was the year of Story. 2024 is the Year of Rest. You can read more about what that means HERE.
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