Two months out
malaria patients; agriculture—23 fruit-tree seedlings, 10 farming tools and training; grow the church—nine Bibles and hymnals, five gifts to help ELCA missionaries provide sur- gical training, one gift to help start a Sunday school program; international disaster—40 blankets; help at home—eight gifts to feed 10 at a soup kitchen; and four gifts “where needed most” ($257).
Goat incentive P
DESIGN PICS Congregation uses ‘Good Gifts’ as Lenten discipline
erhaps it was the goats in the narthex that did it. Epiphany Lutheran Church, Centerville (Dayton), Ohio, used the ELCA Good Gifts catalog as its Lenten mission project last year. The catalog is used year-round by congregations and groups, such as Sunday school students. At Christmastime it’s a popular tool for giv- ing. Epiphany’s use of the catalog during Lent is testament to the pos- sibilities of its use during that season.
In a clever marketing move, the planning committee had several goats in the narthex one Sunday during Lent. They also sent catalogs to every family in the congregation with the challenge to sponsor 300 Good Gifts.
Members went beyond that goal by sponsoring 379 gifts, in cluding $2,500 to dig an entire well for a village (with the help of Lenten soup supper offerings). But the most popular gift was a $50 goat. Members sponsored 56 of them.
The 379 gifts have a value of more than $16,000, said Larry, a retired ELCA pastor, and Cindy Hoffsis, planning team co-chairs. They said the generous response clearly reflected Epiphany’s mission state- ment “We love Jesus by serving others” and the ELCA motto “God’s work. Our hands.”
Resource The ELCA Good Gifts Fair Planning Guide is located at www.elca. org/goodgifts. The newly updated guide helps congregations plan ELCA Good Gifts activities throughout the year, including Lent and Easter, Mother’s and Father’s days, Bible school and fall festivals.
In addition to the well, a share of another well and goats, the congre- gation was able to supply neighbors across the world with gifts in these areas: God’s Global Barnyard—730 chicks, 26 pigs, 26 ducks, four sheep, four alpacas and two cows; water— 700 purification tablets and 48 water jugs; women and children—13 school fees for a girl, six textbooks for a child, two microloans; health—health and dental care for 20 children, 16 chil- dren’s vaccinations, eye care for three people; malaria—33 mosquito nets, four trainings for village health-care teams, three medicine gifts to treat
Good one!
Fitting the pieces together
Confirmation students at St. Paul Lutheran on Dog Leg Road in Dayton, Ohio, began the school year by putting together a puzzle of their church. Kurt Lammi, pas- tor, ordered a puzzle of the photo he had taken and told the students “the life of the church involves all of us working together.” When the puzzle was complete, Lammi flipped it over between two pieces of poster board and used packing tape to hold it together. Then he framed it for his office wall, but not without keeping one piece out that hung separately. The caption said, “This ‘missing’ piece
represents everyone and everything that is not yet included in the life of the church but should be—and the hole in the larger puzzle shows that there is always room for them, always a place where they belong. It represents the people we haven’t met yet, the ways of sharing the gospel we haven’t explored yet, and the surprises God hasn’t revealed to us yet …. Each piece plays a part in revealing a great picture of God’s lo v e. So may God continue to bring all of the pieces together.”
January 2013 41
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