A Note From Your Church Council President
Dear Members of Faith, by the time you read this, school will be back in session, summer vacations (or what there was of them) will be behind us, and planning on new survival tactics for the fall will be keeping us all busy!
The Church staff and the Council have been exploring increased opportunities for Church worship, fellowship, prayer, and study in our new online environment (in addition to some face-to-face opportunities that Pr. Ben will highlight in his comments this month). Online worship at 11:00 a.m. will continue each Sunday into the fall, as will various opportunities for prayer and study during the week. And last month’s email blast introduced our Tables for Eight social opportunity that gives you a chance to get to know some new faces and maybe develop some sustained relationships with other members of Faith.
In addition to these events, we’ll be starting some new Zoom events in September. On Sunday mornings we’ll be adding a FACE (Faith Adult Christian Education) Class from 10-10:50 a.m. (between our live Sunday service and the online 11 a.m. offering). That class will follow in the format of the FACE classes that we held for many years in our Fellowship Hall (we’ve had nearly 1000 FACE class meetings over the past 32 years!). Each class series will run an average of three weeks, and will focus on a Bible study, a discussion of some important topic central to our life as a church, or around conversations related to the life of prayer, service, spiritual development, and ethics. We’re hoping to get some new members involved in teaching these classes, and so you will definitely see some new faces in the mix going forward.
And following the Sunday 11 a.m.-12 p.m. online worship, we will immediately be extending that time together into an impromptu coffee hour on Zoom (and by phone) from 12 to about 12:30 p.m. This will be a very unstructured time for you to reach out to a few fellow church members to connect, share stories, seek support, and stay in the loop on happenings at FLC. Details on topic schedules, how to sign in, and related issues will be forthcoming. Since one of the most challenging issues many of us are facing is loneliness, separation from loved ones, and feeling cramped up in our homes, these offerings will give all of us a chance to “get out there” and talk to and visit with others—if only for a few minutes!
Let me close with a few words on our FLC Stewardship and Capital Campaign. As of the 18th of August, we have received about $89,000 in contributions toward our goal of $125,000 for our new sanctuary sound system, cameras for broadcast, and some new lighting for our worship space. Thank you to all of you who have committed to this work, and to ongoing support for other capital projects during the coming years. As we get closer to our financial goal, we hope to start on that AV project so it is ready when we all move back into the sanctuary in the not- too-distant future.
Have a great fall, and blessings on you and your families!
Joel Zimbelman, FLC Council President