Friday, November 20, 2009

Would you help us?


Today we at Chain of Lakes are scheduled to receive 75 beautiful and comfortable chairs that will be placed in our new worship space. A picture of this chair is on top of this blog. Tomorrow at our “Moving In Party” we are going to assemble and place the chairs in the worship space.

The chairs are comfortable, attractive, and inexpensive—they cost $36.99 a piece. John Ivers—a member of the Steering Committee of Chain of Lakes—did an outstanding job of finding these chairs and arranging for them to be delivered.

We have one challenge—how are we going to pay for these chairs? We don’t have a line item in our budget for purchasing 75 chairs at $36.99 a chair.

We are asking Presbyterian churches and others outside our new church to purchase chairs.

Through basic Mission support the PC(USA) is supporting Chain of Lakes financially. We are grateful for this support. When I go out to Presbyterian congregations to speak, I enthusiastically thank them for their support for basic Presbyterian Mission. This support is our seed money. I come from agricultural stock, so I know that it’s impossible to grow anything—including a church—without quality seed.

If you are a Presbyterian, would you ask your Session to consider prayerfully purchasing some chairs for Chain of Lakes? Encourage them to buy five, ten—maybe twenty. One church has made a pledge of purchasing twenty chairs. Purchasing these chairs is one way your congregation can directly help us at Chain of Lakes.

If you would like to help as an individual, would you consider purchasing chairs for Chain of Lakes? Perhaps you could purchase five, ten—why not twenty?

I spoke at our Presbytery meeting on Tuesday, November 10 about purchasing chairs. It was a gas for me to stand up in front of the Presbytery and make the pitch for these chairs. I shared that these chairs could be an effective evangelism tool—that people would like sitting in these chairs so much that they would come from miles to sit in them. Okay, that sentence might be a stretch, but I have faith that God can accomplish things that far surpass our expectations.

Who knows, maybe our chairs will be an Evangelism tool.

At that meeting, I received pledges for about 30 chairs. At that moment the interest in purchasing chairs seemed so high that one person asked me what we would do if we receive more money than the 75 chairs. I immediately replied that this is a problem which I look forward to solving.

We’re not solving that problem today—we’re encouraging people and congregations to purchase chairs.

If you are a participant at Chain of Lakes we are encouraging you to give financially to our ministry.

Would you help us? Send checks made out to Chain of Lakes Church. Our office address is 6776 Lake Drive #225; Lino Lakes, MN 55014.

Thanks in advance to everyone who will make a financial contribution for these chairs. It is a privilege to serve a connectional denomination!

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