A Letter from Pastor Mark - November



Dear Friends,
It’s the beginning of November.  What does that mean?  It means that we will soon be celebrating Thanksgiving, and then we will be in the midst of the Christmas season.
Again this year we will be participating in Operation Christmas Transformation.  What is this?  This is an attempt to help the families of the church transform Christmas from just being about us to also include an emphasis on Jesus.  After all, Christmas is Jesus’ birthday.
Operation Christmas Transformation gives you the opportunity to give Jesus a gift.  Here is how you can do it.  You can purchase, through an envelope in the weekly church bulletin, a picture poinsettia instead of a live poinsettia.  This picture poinsettia can be in memory or in honor of someone.  The cost is $10 per picture poinsettia.  You can also just make a contribution to Operation Christmas Transformation. 
The contributions that are received during Operation Christmas Transformation will be divided equally between two funds.  The first fund is Pastor’s Benevolent.  This money helps us to be able to respond to needy families in our community.  Recently, instead of just giving out money we have begun a process of giving some micro-loans.  
 Micro-loans are small loans to help people with their specific needs.  They are given the money interest free and then pay it back over a period of time.  This helps maintain the individual’s personal responsibility and dignity.  We still help in the traditional ways, but we are using the micro-loan approach as well.  When you participate in Operation Christmas Transformation, you are assisting in the effort of helping those in need.
The second fund that Operation Christmas Transformation benefits is the Pastor’s Ministry Fund.  This fund enables the church staff and servant leadership to take advantage of ministry opportunities that arise suddenly.  There are many opportunities that we would not be able to take advantage of because there is no money built into the church budget for those purposes.  Some examples from the past that this fund has been used for are some of the ministries that we have started with Homecroft Elementary.  This fund helps us to do ministry that we would not be able to do otherwise.
Susan and I plan to participate in Operation Christmas Transformation again this year.  We plan to spend less on Christmas for our families, and we will give that money to Operation Christmas Transformation.  We are going to do that because we want to give beyond ourselves, and this is a way we can give a Christmas gift to the causes that we know that Jesus would  support.  It is our way of giving Jesus a birthday gift. 
I want to invite each of you to participate in Operation Christmas Transformation.  Look for envelopes that will be in the weekly bulletins.
In Christ’s Abundant Love,
Pastor Mark



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