Dear Friends & Members of Grace Meridian Hill,
We are writing you today on #GivingTuesday to invite you to partner with us in our NEW BEGINNING CAMPAIGN. We are endeavoring to raise $213,000 by December 31 in order to prepare for an exciting new phase of kingdom ministry in and through our church. To reach our goal, we need your help!
At the end of each calendar year we hold a special giving campaign during which we ask that you prayerfully consider contributing to our ministry — as a special gift, if you are a friend/supporter of our ministry, or above and beyond your normal giving, if you are a worshipping member. This year we approach the end of the year encouraged by recent events as well as upcoming ministry developments:
After years of prayer and labor, we finally moved to our new home at the First Church of Seventh-Day Adventists. From our first service (November 12) it was clear that the Lord had truly given us a gift!
As our children’s ministry continues to grow numerically, we’re excited to bring aboard Amy Roebke, our first ever full-time Children’s Ministry Director in January.
Pastor Yancie has completed his licensure exams and will be ordained and installed as our Assistant Pastor on January 7.
We are completing the training of Elder/Diaconate candidates and anticipate the installation of new leaders in the coming months. Additionally, we recently received nominations for 11 additional candidates for Deacon, Deaconess, and the new role of Shepherdess.
We will be launching a new series of Education Ministry classes in the new year, beginning with our network Winter Term class, “What’s So Holy About the Holy Bible?” in January.
Each Sunday we welcome more and more visitors from our church’s neighborhoods, some of whom are new to the Christian faith, and many of whom have now become part of our family. By God’s grace we are marching one step closer to being the Spiritually Diverse, Cross-Cultural, Neighborhood-Centered community that we labor to see!
Your contributions to the New Beginning Campaign will help us build toward this exciting future. With the move to our new building came higher rent and additional moving expenses. With a growing crowd of children came the expansion of the Children’s Ministry position (vacant for over a year) from a part-time to a full-time role with added expenses. Funds that are raised will not only go toward helping us meet the financial obligations outlined in our Annual Budget, they will also help us to build upon our neighborhood outreach efforts (e.g., Easter Party, youth mentorship, Summer Bible Club, SafeFamilies/DC127), deepen our community ministries (e.g., Sunday Suppers, Cross-Cultural community programming), and promote the spiritual health of our church family (shepherding, counseling, teaching).
Additionally, we are seeking to close a moderate budget deficit. So far this year — as illustrated in the chart below, with green representing our offering goals and yellow representing our actual giving — we have fallen short of our anticipated giving over the past few months. Cumulatively, we are $46,000 below where we would like to be at this point in the year. While concerning, this does not surprise us. We recognize that our community has been in a phase of transition the last few months with the pending move and with a number of long-time members recently departing to pursue various callings. This deficit, added to the $167,000 we had already planned to raise this December (only $2,000 more than was raised in December last year) brings us to our target of $213,000.
Our campaign goal is an ambitious target, but we believe that it is achievable! In fact, in December 2016, by God’s grace and your generosity, we were able to raise $165,000. This year, the target is bigger, but so also is our sense that the Lord is propelling us into a new chapter of ministry with new and exciting possibilities — a new beginning!
You may give during our Sunday offering, mail checks to our church office (see address below), or give to the New Beginning Giving Campaign online. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us. We are confident that God can provide for our needs. We invite you pray with us that He will!
With hope in Christ alone,
Duke Kwon, Lead Pastor
Marcus Cross, Deacon of Church Finances
Grace Meridian Hill
637 Indiana Ave NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20004