June

Dear Bethel Members,

Your Church Council has been working diligently to develop recommendations to present to you as requested at our annual congregational meeting in January 2013. The Council, the Finance Committee and Bethel’s staff have spent many hours working through ideas and scenarios to best address our finances while maintaining our mission to celebrate Christ’s death and resurrection and to spread the Good News through our lives of faith and service. We are prepared to present our tentative plan to you at a special congregational meeting scheduled for Sunday, June 9, 2013 at 10:00 am after worship. We ask that you plan on attending this very important meeting. We need your input as we finalize this plan to address the deficit in our budget.

As part of the Lutheran community of Jamestown, the councils of the four congregations have been meeting together monthly to share the concerns and issues we are all facing and how we can best serve our fellow Lutherans and the community in general. At our last meeting, we agreed to form a smaller group with two representatives from each church as well as our pastors to develop recommendations to take back to our memberships. The Council approved Christine Prinzi and Paul Gutzmer as Bethel’s representatives. This group will be meeting weekly throughout the summer to create this plan. This is a huge commitment for Christine and Paul and we thank them for their willingness to join this group. Our gratitude and our prayers are with them as they take on this project. This group will be in close communication with the four church councils and our respective congregations.

We are looking forward to a Jamestown Lutheran Community event to be held this summer. The four Lutheran Churches are planning a joint outdoor celebration either at LCLC or LSS. A combined planning committee for this event has been created and I will be representing Bethel. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please let me know. More details will follow.

Bethel’s by-laws state that 10% of the endowments’ earnings, approximately $3,400 from 2012, be donated to serve our community. The Council has decided to donate to the Boys and Girls Club of Jamestown, East Side YMCA and LCLC in equal amounts. In June, Chris Prinzi, Sean Kilmartin and I will be hand-delivering these checks to the respective organizations.

Jennifer Spacht submitted her letter of resignation to the Council, effective August 15, 2013. We thank Jennifer for all of her time and efforts to support our Christian Education program and youth events. We look forward to her plans for Vacation Bible School August 5-9, which is always a great series of activities for our youth. If you would like to assist with VBS, please let Jennifer know. We congratulate Jennifer on her graduation and our prayers and best wishes are with her as she moves into her new career in public education.

Finally, Pastor Adam informed the Council that he will be leaving Bethel this summer. While we are saddened that he will not be with us, we wish him and Pastor Jordan well as they follow their dreams and God’s will for their ministries. The Council thanks Pastor Adam for his 2 ½ years of service to Bethel during a difficult time here at Bethel, especially when we were grieving the sudden death of Pastor Norm. We appreciate his spiritual support and leadership as we all move forward in our life of faith, as well as the friendships we have formed with both Pastor Adam and Pastor Jordan. Our thoughts and prayers will be with them in North Carolina. (Feel free to take some snow with you. We have plenty.)

Respectfully yours,

Gregg Davis- President