First Presbyterian Church
Put it on the Lawn
Sermon for September 27, 2003
by Pastor Susan Barnes

The Rev. Dorothy Knudson served as interim pastor here in 1999-2000. We are glad she could join us this morning. She will read the first scripture lesson from Paul's letter to the Corinthians.

Apparently the church in Corinth was dividing itself according to who was baptized by whom, comparing pastors, and Paul had to remind them it is God who matters, not the names of the men who baptized them. And some of them were complaining that preach ed too simple a message.

Hear his answer as we listen for the word of God as it is in 1 Corinthians 3:1-11.

1 And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? 4 For when one says, "I belong to Paul," and another, "I belong to Apollos," are you not merely human? 5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. 9 For we are God's servants, working together; you are God's field, God's building. 10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.

This ends our reading f ro m first Corinthians. You don't have Paul and Apollos, but you do have plenty of other people who could be named and compared . Of all those people, w ho is responsible for keeping this congregation in ministry ? That would be God.

Our next reading is from Romans. I picked this text because Paul named names. He didn't just say, “hello to everyone , if I start listing people I will forget someone, so I won't name anybody.” Paul was specific. The names help us realize the church in Rome was filled with real human beings.

Listen for the word of God as it is found in Romans 16:1-16.

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, 2 so that you may welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well. 3 Greet Prisca and Aquila, who work with me in Christ Jesus, 4 and who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles. 5 Greet also the church in their house. Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert in Asia for Christ. 6 Greet Mary, who has worked very hard among you. 7 Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was. 8 Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord.

9 Greet Urbanus, our co-worker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys. 10 Greet Apelles, who is approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus. 11 Greet my relative Herodion. Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus. 12 Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphaena and Tryphosa. Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord. 13 Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; and greet his mother-- a mother to me also.14 Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers and sisters who are with them. 15 Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them. 16 Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you.

This ends our reading of God's word.

Paul did try to cover everyone by saying “Greet the brothers and sisters with them, greet those in the family, greet the church. But the names interest me. Deacon Phoebe was a benefactor; Prisca and Aquila risked their lives for Paul, Adronicus and Junia were in prison with Paul, and Urbanus, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, Persis were all hard workers in the Lord.

Who are we to count ourselves with them? We too are workers in the Lord.

I thought you might be interested in some of our statistics in the last five years. I started five years ago, because that's when you began working to raise money and build your new fellowship hall.I want to tell this story because more than half of you weren't here when it began. Bill, the clerk of session did a little digging through the statistics. In 1998, we had 118 members. Since then , we have had 72 member changes. That's a 61% change in five years. In those five years , 7 members have moved, 22 members have died, and we have received 44 new members. Now our membership is at 133.

There are only 61 members now who were members in 1998. That's less than half our current membership. That's why I want to tell the story of how the fellowship hall came to be built, and how we were able to pay it off so quickly .

This story involves a lot of different people, and I will name plenty. I like reading all those names in Romans; and I figure many of you would like hearing the names of those in the congregation. I tried to get everyone's permission to name them, and check that I had my facts right. Several people I 've talked to more than once, so I want to thank John and Fran, Rick Rembold, and LaVonne for bearing with me. And I appreciate all the times John explained to me the difference between preferred, common stock, bonds, dividends, interest, portfolio.

I don't claim to have a perfect memory; that's why I take so many notes; I stand a better chance of remembering where the note is than what's on it, although I often misplace the notes, too.

Last April, the women's support group made centerpieces for the Lunch for the Graduates. There were about nine people there, making centerpieces. We had a lot of ivy left over. So much so, that when Jean needed ivy for the Taming of the Shrew, she came to the church to borrow it. It wasn't in the basement, or the attic, or the cupboards, or the closets or the shelves. She asked Betsy, and Betsy said Pat had it. She asked Pat , who said Betsy had it. She asked the rest of us, and we were all pretty sure that Betsy or Pat had it. We weren't much help. We still haven't found it.

That's the way it is when we try to remember what happened; we just make our best guess. If someone had told us Jean would need it later, we would have paid better attention. One of the people I interviewed about the fellowship hall said, “If we had known we were making history, we would have kept better records.” We don't know, at the time, whether what we do will be important.

So, when I started asking questions about what happened five years ago, I didn't expect people would remember exactly what happened. I talked to Sharon about it, and she said that so much of it is “lost in the mists of time.”

I did my best to check before I used anyone's name. For example, I was told Denise wrote grants, and then when she moved, Jean took over. I called Denise in Colorado , and she said she didn't write any grants at all. She said, “ I was on some committee, she said, but I don't remember which one. And you can quote me.” (1)

I will be putting this sermon in with church history, so if you have a piece of the truth you want to correct or add or delete, just send me a note and I'll include it. It's too late for this sermon.

The original idea for the fellowship hall was adding extending it onto the back lawn (where the playground is now). Or j ust adding on new bathrooms and remodeling the downstairs kitchen. Former pastor Linda Toth remembers “We were doing an evangelism retreat with the session, and we had a church building audit. The elders had to pretend they had never seen the church before. They had to find the restrooms and nursery. Betty brought a wheelchair from the hospital, and Mike rode it. He found that he couldn't get into the church at all because of the lip on the front door.” Said Jean,“We helped Mike inside, but he could only be in the sanctuary.” To get to any other room, you had to use stairs.

Linda said, “Rose had an 85 th birthday, and Mark had to carry her downstairs to the party.” Bob arranged for a demonstration of a moving stairwell chair, to use down the back alley stairway to get to fellowship hall. Rick said, “ We talked money and everything, until our elderly said they wouldn't ride it. But we couldn't come up with a way to move from the split-level basement to a one level fellowship hall. ”

Did you know there are five different levels of the old building? And that's not counting the stage downstairs, nor the back stairwell. If there was an elevator, where should it go to reach every level? You just couldn't make it handicap accessible.

To use the restrooms, you had to go upstairs to the single restroom by the pastor's office, or down the stairs to the restrooms by the preschool. “ We were limiting some of our dearest members access. The bathroom was a big issue, ” remembers Rick.

In the summers, the fellowship coffee hosts would do coffee fellowship in the narthex . That meant carrying the full coffee pots up the back stairway and down the south aisle to the narthex.

A nd so the discussion went, until, at a session meeting elder Gary (2) said, ‘Why don't we put it on the side lawn?' The rest of the elders went [dope slap]. Rick said “ Our focus had been so much on the back of the church. We had a huge side yard, there was plenty of access, with no split level problems.”

Our Minutes book shows that on 5-18-97 at the Annual Congregational meeting, Jim presented a potential design for church addition. The church would qualify for a Synod loan of $250,000. The cost is estimated at $ 280-330,000. The results of the congregational vote was 35- build new facility, 2 remodel existing facility, 2 make no major changes. Church members and friends not present were to be polled later.

On 9-23-97 , the session facilities review committee dismissed, and they appointed one task force to be in charge of design decisions, and other in charge of fundraising.

Dec. 4, 1997 , the Financial Task Force met for the first time, with Dale, Denise, Linda Toth, Bob, Paige, and Gary. They needed a leader, and Rick came on February 11 as the chair, after Gary invited him. In April, Anna Lugo, representative from Presbyterian Church Financial Campaign Service, came to a meeting to help with the planning.

On 1-18-98 , at the congregational meeting , they voted to apply for a loan through Synod of the Pacific.

On 2-22-98 at a special session meeting , they voted to use Church Financial Campaign Service at a cost of $ 1,446.12 and $ 2,000 in expenses.

Linda Toth worked on denominational loans, because she “chaired the Mission Finance Committee for the Synod of the Pacific, so she knew what to do and where to go.” The presbytery and synod had approved the church for up to $250,000. The problem would be how to pay it off. We were still in the process of thinking we wouldn't be able to finish the whole building; just put up a shell. In the May 1998 issue of our newsletter, the Grapevine , Rick, wrote, “As we enter the last month before our Campaign commitment Sunday on May 31, I have had conversations with many in our church family. ‘it's about time!' is a phrase that I keep hearing.

‘It's about time!' we had some nice handicapped restrooms for those that need them. Restrooms that they don 't have to climb a dozen stairs to reach. And they might even have a shelf or a counter where a woman could set her purse while she's busy.

‘It's about time!' we had a fellowship hall that all of our church family could have access to. Wouldn't it have been wonderful to have had all the tremendous Easter crowd attend Myron and Dottie's incredible reception?

And while we're at it, what about all the other folks in our community that would use our centrally located church if it was physically accessible? How many more 50th anniversary receptions could enjoy our church?

‘It's about time!' we had a kitchen where the stoves actually cooked at the temperature they were set for. What sort of wonderful meals and receptions could be prepared? How many years have those wonderful ladies been saving so our church could have such a kitchen? And with a dishwasher — need I say more? ‘ It's about time' we did something about all this. And we are.”

And then Rick wrote about the campaign. “We 've applied for some small grants and obtained a loan. Now its time for the church family to step forward and make this addition a reality.

The goal for the campaign is $200,0000 in pledges and major gifts over a three year period. Believe me when I say that the Task Force is very aware that this is a tremendous amount of money. Most of us have never worked with anywhere close to that amount of money, and, quite frankly, find it scary. Nevertheless, our research, prayers and discussions with you indicate it is a reachable goal if we are to build our addition.

So, how do we raise $200,000 over a three year period? Quite simply, we all do our best to do our part. The campaign asks that we prayerfully consider a pledge of 4-5% of our income for a three year period. This represents a major commitment by all of us. Is everyone going to be able to meet that commitment? Of course not. We know that. But if we all do our best and we can average that amount, we feel strongly that we can meet our goal .

We ask that you pray for the campaign and pray about how you can help. We know faith can move mountains. In our case, we believe that faith can build an important addition to our church. ” And then he talked about welcoming the visiting stewards into your homes. Each steward had a list of people to visit, to talk about the addition plans, and ask for pledges.”

They hoped to supplement the pledges with grants. Jean wrote a lot of grant applications. All of them were turned down, some politely, some abruptly. It was very discouraging. We put some of those discouraging rejection letters in the window well for you to read.

Now let's go back about forty years. Mildred Rogers was the church treasurer. She loved a good joke. Because we are burning the mortgage on Rogers Hall today, I asked her daughter Edna to send me two of Mildred's jokes. Here's Steve with the jokes.

Where do good people go when they die? To heaven

Where do bad people go when they die? To hell

Where do prostitutes go when they die? To the Virgin Islands to be re-cycled.

An elderly man was playing golf with his friend. A funeral procession drove by and the elderly man stopped playing golf, removed his hat in reverence, and stood very still. His friend remarked, “That was a kind and reverent thing for you to do.” The golfer responded, “ Well, after all, we had been married for fifty years.”

In 1959, she gave shares worth about $ 15,000 and in 1962, she gave more worth about $ 13,000, with the idea that just the dividends be used for ongoing maintenance of First Presbyterian Church, and the church could pay its bills with the dividends.

Mildred's daughter Edna remembers her mother saying, ‘I gave this USBank stock to the church, so the Church could use the dividends to help pay the monthly operating expenses. After being the church treasurer for 32 years, I knew, from experience how difficult it was to make ends meet and pay the monthly bills. The months of Dec. and April were good months, because of Christmas and Easter, but the summer months were bad, because of poor church attendance. Perhaps this gift will make a difference.'

The trustees had a joint meeting with the session on October 1, 1959, and Bill moved that session accept the resolution describing the acceptance of the Rogers trust, “recommending to all future boards that they exercise the rights regardless of whether the funds in the trust agreement are sufficient or not.” The funds were sufficient.

In reading her letter from June 1, 1962 , my favorite sentence, “If you are unwilling to accept this gift subject to these conditions, please endorse the enclosed certificate in blank and return it to me. George wrote on behalf of the board of trustees, “The gift is gratefully accepted.” In September, the Clerk of session said “You know better than any of us how difficult it is to meet our budget each year. The annual dividends from the many thousand dollars of bank stock will certainly go a long way toward relieving our budget dilemma. The elders wish also to thank you for the very fine way you are doing the difficult job of disbursing treasurer. You are most faithful.

May you and your husband find strength through the knowledge of God's love.

Sincerely, Kenneth Crawford, Clerk of Session.”

So the gift made a difference. Joined with the other tithes and offerings, the church was able to afford a pastor , maintain the building, and send a lot of money to mission.

And that continued; Pastor Steve reported that when our Synod loan came through the loan committee, the committee was amazed at the amount that we regularly give to mission projects. In 1997, it was at least 13%, and that's not counting the offerings from the children or the women's circles.

At the congregational meeting 5- 17 -98 , our treasurer, Lavonne explained that our USBANK corp stock had split. We own 40,839, which is up from 13, 613 we were given.

Now, the minutes don't record what the stock was worth, just how many shares we had. I talked to Lavonne ab out it, and she said “every time the stock split, we would get another certificate. I'd get a generic financial report at the end of the year, telling us how many dividends we had. Rick told me “We thought those stocks were sacred. A few people knew that bank stock had done well, split, and our stock had gone up. We had accepted our checks happily. Most of us thought that that was the agreement of the endowment.

John and Fran were visiting stewards , so they had gone to the church office for a copy of the financial statement. They went because, as John said, “Dale asked me to call on members for pledges to the fund drive for the building of a new fellowship hall. We were very dubious about the possibility of this project, building just a partial shell, and having the financing. From the congregational meeting, John knew the stock had split and doubled many times since Mildred Rogers gave it to us in 1959 and 1962. From the amount of the dividends we had and the yield of 2% we were receiving , John he calculated that we had well over a million dollars in common stock. That's how John's investigations began.

Here's how Rick remembers finding out:

Tuesday May 19, 1998- The Finance Committee met. Julie took the sheet of the stocks we had, and how many shares we had. She had recently looked up US Bank Stock for a client. It had been $124 a share before the split . She asked for a calculator that none of them had, pulled a tiny one out of her purse, and did the calculations. She said, ‘I better do that again.' She did it again, then she said ‘Are you guys aware that the stock is worth 1.6 million dollars?' The sound of chins bouncing off the tables and silence. We were shocked. So she explained it to us, and I remember everybody was just giddy. We didn't accomplish anything else at that meeting.

And even though Rick had been careful to keep minutes of all the meetings, he didn't for this one. So who was there, what was said, is all in the mists of time.

John called Julie in the next day or two, to tell her about his investigations. She said, “ When John called, I was glad because he confirmed what I thought was there . It was a coincidence that both of us were looking at it the same time as unbelievable as it seems. We were both astounded. John took it from there. He got together with Edna, confirmed the amounts, donations.

Linda told me she remembers that when the congregation found out how much the endowment was worth, she thought ‘ that's all well and good, but we can't touch it. ' ” Steve said that it was great to know that the gifts of one individual would be used to further the ministry and mission of the church. He “knew that the Session/congregation would use the money wisely - take time think, prayer, ponder the possibilities. I didn't want people to start thinking the church now has a pot of money and giving isn't important and/or needed.” Congregational giving was still very much needed.

Dale and Gary lined up the people who would be the ‘visiting stewards.' They were trained a little over a week later, on Thursday May 28, by Ana Lugo from the Church Financial Campaign Services . She used the CFCS formula and the church demographics, and said we could raise $90,000.

On Friday, May 29, 6:00 p.m. they had a dinner at the Methodist church, because the Methodists had a new kitchen our ladies liked. Visiting day was Saturday and Sunday May 30-31. Early Saturday, Ana Lugo trained those stewards who couldn't come Thursday. All the visits were completed in a weekend. The stewards visited, had lunch together, did the rest of their routes. Ana Lugo recalls that “at the visiting stewards training the instructions were that the session was very aware of the gift, but that they were investigating if there were restrictions. Once that question was addressed, then decisions could be made about how to use the money to finish the construction.”

Bob and Bob were in charge of getting major gifts. The total pledges by that weekend were $136,500 over three years after that weekend. The total amount of pledges that came in were Trisha, what's the number?

So, what I want to know is whose idea was it to talk to Mildred about shifting some of the principal from the trust fund to the new building? (3)

I suspect it was John's brilliant idea, but he can't verify the details. He feels it was a consensus of several people. This is part of the mist-of-time thing. He was asked to talk with Mildred because he and Fran are longtime friends of the family. Mildred had been living at Meadowbrook for some time; she was 98 years old.

John and Edna went to see Mildred, with trepidation. He said to Mildred, “You know, the gift you gave to the church is in excess of a million dollars.

She didn't bat an eyelash, but said, “ Yes, it does tend to accumulate. ”

John said, “ We know that the terms of your gift doesn't allow to spend principal . What do you think of the idea of transferring 200,000 into the building fund to build a new fellowship hall?”

Mildred said, “Absolutely. That's a good idea.”

At a session meeting on 6-23-98 , Rick reported to the session that Mildred said we could sell $200,000 worth of stock and use it for the building. That same meeting they discussed the need to better manage the stocks and so they appointed a Longterm Financial Committee: John, Julie, and Edna. Then they discussed having colored building envelopes and whether or not to have a Miners Jubilee float, and having a Japanese missionary who was in town come to speak. And then there were the pastors' reports and committee reports,

August 25, 1998 , co-pastor Steve Toth resigned to accept a call at Snake River Correctional Facility in Ontario Nov. 1. Co-pastor Linda Toth would become the pastor and go to three-quarter time, and stay through June 1999.

And that's the way the history went; in the middle of this huge campaign, ministry kept happening, even with a change in pastoral leadership. The congregation didn't stop doing what it was already doing; the campaign and the building were added on to what was already happening.

Rick said, “We realized we had the money to do the addition without taking the church into an incredible debt load. [Finding the worth of the endowment] did not effect whether or not we were going to build. It affected whether or not we were going to finish.

Sept. 22, 98 John reported to the session on the Church's portfolio and shared plans for managing it in the future. One elder (Rick) remembers “John and Edna and Julie switched a portion of the common stocks over to the preferred stocks so we could get interest. The rest of us didn't know you could do that.” Session directed the clerk to write a letter to Mildred Rogers expressing appreciation for her contributions to be signed by all members of session.

The building took 6 months to build but nine months to design. Nine months prior to beginning construction, the Interior Design committee began: Ginger, Jim , Jean, Fran, and Pansy. Pansey remembers that Jean was good at giving us her good ideas and that almost every woman in the church helped with it. She said “ We did dinners for I don't know how many people, ” as fundraisers for the new kitchen. I looked at the records, and it shows the kitchen fund pledged about $14,000.

The interior design committee made all the choices of everything from paint to finishes to carpet. Some of their minutes and color decisions are in one of the window wells in the fellowship hall so you can appreciate their work.

Before construction started, all the decisions were made. The whole design of the building, plus the interior and exterior finishes were decided on.

The building committee consisting of Jim, Gary and Jim, and Bob remembers he and Dale were also on the building committee that met Wedn esdays at noon . They had weekly meetings and had the authority to make decisions while the building was under construction.

Bob reports that he, Gary, Rick, Jed, and Lukecleaned up the debris one Saturday. Gary and Bob marked an absolute level around the crawlspace under the kitchen, so the crew could put supports up for the kitchen. They used a laser leveler, and did it twice. Jimmy the contractor said their pencil marks were too thick, and gave us a sharp pencil, and told us to do it again.”

Initially the design called for covering all the windows on that side. The congregation decided not to if it could be at all avoided . . The biggest challenge was how to backlight the stained glass windows covered by the kitchen walls and cupboards.

I asked Jimmy once why they didn't try to conceal the bulbs in those windows. He told me they tried everything they could possibly imagine, but this was the only way the windows could be lit by bulbs you could change and still have cupboards in the kitchen.

One of my favorite parts of Rogers Hall are the crystal doors. Jimmy told me “Cost considerations led to purchasing the transom separate from the crystal door. The transom window ended up smaller than the crystal doors. The carpenter Larry said he had an idea how to make the transition between the doors and the narrower transom. He told Jimmy to come back in a day or two. When Jimmy returned, he saw the beautiful carved praying hands above both corners of the door: a pair of light hands praying and a pair of dark hands praying. When I heard that story three and a half years ago, I thought the message of those doors was “Prayer makes things fit together.” It was also Larry's idea to cover the seams on the valances of the indirect lighting with small wooden crosses. He also placed little crosses above the closet doors and other areas in the fellowship hall and challenged people to count them.

Larry made the picture of Jesus that hangs in the fellowship hall. Initially he wanted to gift it to the church. Mark said no, he bought and Sid Johnson' s and Co. gifted it to the church. A year later, we hired Larry to make a frame for it and we placed it above the kitchen pass-through.

The one thing Jimmy is most proud of is that they took advice from the contractor and made the decisions prior to construction. Thus we only had 1% of the cost of construction in changes after the start of construction. If those decisions aren't made, costs run usually 7-10 %. So all that planning was good stewardship, too. The greatest satisfaction a builder gets after he's done is see the clients take possession of it and make it into their building.

Bob McKim figured there were things we could do while pouring the foundation with volunteers, and they did make it one Saturday. Rogers Hall was dedicated April 4, 1999 . Mildred was 99 years old, and she and her family were able to be there. The pastor at the time, Linda Toth, poured a swig tipped “a dollop of coffee on the carpet in the corner where she was standing.” Linda told me the gasp was audible a t the time, so then she said, “I did it, so you can get mad at me, not the kids. I was the one most likely to spill any way. This room is to be used, not to be looked at. We can't say, ‘We can't do that because of the windows, or you can't do that because of the carpeting.' , to remind everyone the room was to be used and useful.

At the dedication, Fran gave a short speech at the time; some of it is reprinted in your bulletin. I did revise it a little, and I put in the dollar amounts. The church sold $800,000 worth of common stock very close to its all time high, thanks to John and the Longterm Financial Committee. $200,000 of it went into the building fund. The balance of it went to purchase preferred stock, which would net us higher dividends. Dividends from the trust paid for the interest on the loans.

Which left only (4) $132,000 for the congregation to pay. Remember, according to the formula of the church financial campaign service, this church could only raise $90,000.

• We were approved for denominational loans up to $250,000, but we took out just $120,000. The final payment on the loans to Synod were completed completed 12/27/00 2002 . The final payment on the loans to General Assembly were completed completed 7/14/ 2003, five months ahead of schedule.

And so today we celebrate burning the mortgage (actually the zeroed out building fund report (5)).

Paul said, “ I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. ”

So I thought it would be interesting this morning to talk about who planted and watered. You have had a number of pastors over the years who have baptized and evangelized and ministered, and encouraged you to grow in your ministry and become good stewards.

Mildred's friend Carolyn Watkins gave a gift of $40,000 in a Money Market Fund, which is now part of the trust fund. There are other unnamed people who have given large amounts to the church, and plenty of unnamed people who have given small amounts to the church. And then there are the people who couldn't afford to give much money to the church, but did give huge amounts of their time and their expertise.

I have enjoyed the use of the fellowship hall. I have seen the way it welcomes people after church, the way the kitchen makes it easy to serve and clean up. I have especially appreciated the hospitality you show at funeral receptions. Bereaved family members and friends stay and visit for a long time. People in wheelchairs appreciate the restrooms. Everyone appreciates the comfortable chairs and the round tables, which lend themselves to conversation. I can't imagine this church without Rogers Hall.

I didn't want its story to be lost in the mists of time.

Let us pray. Gracious God, we thank you for your gifts. Teach us how to use them wisely and share them freely. Guide this congregation in its stewardship, so we might be witnesses to your abundant love through our savior Jesus Christ.

(1) The really hilarious thing is that Jean found Denise's names on some of the grant forms!

(2) After discussing it previously with LaVonne, whose idea it was

(3) Linda Toth remembers it was session who asked John to do it. Its not in the minutes of any session meeting I could find; Linda thinks it wasn't recorded because the elders weren't sure it would work out.

(4) This only is ironic!

(5) At the last session meeting, Lavonne gave an elder a copy of the loan agreement to burn, but we couldn't find it! I didn't want to make Lavonne go to her office Sunday morning, so we burned the report.