PARISH NEWS
Messiah is Hiring a Community Center Coordinator!
Messiah Lutheran Church is a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America that welcomes and actively invites people of all ages, races, ethnicities, nationalities, sexual orientations, gender identities, gender expressions, relationship statuses, socioeconomic statuses, disabilities, and mental and physical conditions into full participation in the body of Christ.
Messiah is hiring a new Community Center Coordinator to conduct administrative activities necessary for the daily operations of the Trinity Community Center and to foster a nurturing and welcoming environment. This is a part-time, roughly twelve-hour a week position, with wages based on qualifications and experience.
Duties include scheduling programming at the Community Center, corresponding with program providers, answering phone, email and social media inquiries from the public, ensuring operational policies are being adhered to by program providers and guests, setting up spaces at the Community Center as needed and assisting the Executive Director in financial development and promoting events.
Applicants must have strong organizational and customer service skills, experience with a wide variety of social media and web-based platforms and a high school diploma or equivalent with a bachelor's degree preferred.
To apply, please submit a resume and cover letter to communitycenter@messiahschenectady.org by Sunday, January 15th, 2023!
Messiah is hiring a new Community Center Coordinator to conduct administrative activities necessary for the daily operations of the Trinity Community Center and to foster a nurturing and welcoming environment. This is a part-time, roughly twelve-hour a week position, with wages based on qualifications and experience.
Duties include scheduling programming at the Community Center, corresponding with program providers, answering phone, email and social media inquiries from the public, ensuring operational policies are being adhered to by program providers and guests, setting up spaces at the Community Center as needed and assisting the Executive Director in financial development and promoting events.
Applicants must have strong organizational and customer service skills, experience with a wide variety of social media and web-based platforms and a high school diploma or equivalent with a bachelor's degree preferred.
To apply, please submit a resume and cover letter to communitycenter@messiahschenectady.org by Sunday, January 15th, 2023!
2023 Epiphany Home Blessings!
Pastor Dustin will be conducting traditional Epiphany Home Blessings beginning Sunday, January 8th and continuing throughout the month. If you'd like to have your home blessed (it takes about ten minutes tops!), please email him at pastor@messiahschenectady.org today!
Save Money and Contribute to the Trinity Community Center through Community Solar
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Through an exciting partnership with the New York State Council of Churches and Crauderueff & Associates, the Creation Care Committee of Messiah Lutheran Church is working to green our local Rotterdam community one household at a time! Through a simple subscription, you will receive a guaranteed electric bill savings of 10% from the solar project, an average of $125 per year! Renters, homeowners and small businesses are ALL eligible! For each new eligible sign up, Messiah Lutheran will also receive a $100 donation from Crauderueff & Associates to support Rotterdam's Trinity Community Center! Sign up at https://bit.ly/TrinityCommunitySolar or by scanning the QR code to the left with your phone today!
Help us reach our goal of signing up 50 households for community solar through 2023 with us so far signing up 5! |
Pastor Dustin performing a classic rendition of Jedi Master Yoda in our Star Wars Christmas Pageant.
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January 2023 Pastor's Letter
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone, When the kings and princes are home, When the shepherds are back with their flock, The work of Christmas begins: To find the lost, To heal the broken, To feed the hungry, To release the prisoner, To rebuild the nations, To bring peace among others, To make music in the heart. - Howard Thurman Friends, In the midst of crippling inflation and growing hunger both locally and around the world, Howard Thurman, a mentor of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's, continues to guide my thinking as we celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas and journey into a new year of Spirit filled community together. This is indeed a time of great difficulty and struggle as we continue working to emerge from the worst global calamity of most of our lifetimes, but keep the faith, dear friends! All of you, in so many ways, are indeed living into Christ's call to do the work of Christmas that Howard Thurman writes about. Through November at our Trinity Community Center for instance, our combined programs have served 29,377 meals and welcomed 5,769 guests all supported by 2156 volunteer hours served! Our kiddos were back in full swing for our Star Wars Christmas Pageant last week and supported by many of our older youth! We are finally nearing completion of our historic "A Place at the Table for Everyone" Accessibility Project! Without a doubt, there are difficulties ahead, but I have MORE FAITH THAN EVER in the Christ that is born in each and every single one of our hearts, each and every single day, to continue the work of Christmas into the year ahead! Merry Christmas, dear friends! in hope, Pastor Dustin |
January 2023 Financial Update
Our Budget & Finance Committee has recommended that we begin including a simplified Financial Update for all members and friends of the congregation in each semi-monthly edition of The Messenger.
Through November of 2022, we received $132,326 into our Annual Fund, up over $10,000 from $121,619 through November 2021. Thank you for your INCREDIBLE generosity! In addition to generous giving from our members, rentals from the Community Center continue to grow, as does donations from individuals and grants from area organizations. That said, mostly due to the global inflation crisis in the aftermath of COVID19, costs have continue to grow, especially related to utilities and building maintenance. We thus remain in a $39,826 deficit for the year.
Our main avenue for growth in revenue in the short term is building a base of donors beyond members of the congregation to our Trinity Community Center. If you haven't already done so, please share information about the Community Center with your friends, family and neighbors!
Thank you everyone for your generosity in 2022! If you haven't already done so, please submit a Statement of Intent for 2023 at https://bit.ly/2023StatementofIntent today!
Through November of 2022, we received $132,326 into our Annual Fund, up over $10,000 from $121,619 through November 2021. Thank you for your INCREDIBLE generosity! In addition to generous giving from our members, rentals from the Community Center continue to grow, as does donations from individuals and grants from area organizations. That said, mostly due to the global inflation crisis in the aftermath of COVID19, costs have continue to grow, especially related to utilities and building maintenance. We thus remain in a $39,826 deficit for the year.
Our main avenue for growth in revenue in the short term is building a base of donors beyond members of the congregation to our Trinity Community Center. If you haven't already done so, please share information about the Community Center with your friends, family and neighbors!
Thank you everyone for your generosity in 2022! If you haven't already done so, please submit a Statement of Intent for 2023 at https://bit.ly/2023StatementofIntent today!
A Place at the Table for Everyone Accessibility Project Update
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While some supply chain issues have slowed down aspects of construction, our historic "A Place at the Table for Everyone" Accessibility Project continues to take shape!
New stairs to the Fellowship Hall have been completed, chandeliers and a BEAUTIFUL Amish cross have been installed in the new foyer area and construction on our new restrooms continues at a rapid pace! New flooring is expected to be installed in early January, as is the new accessible all-gender restrooms, with the new lift being installed in late January. At our Special Meeting of the Congregation on November 6th, we unanimously approved a change order to make necessary sewer improvements, and have spent an estimated $410,000 so far on the project. Through November we received an amazing $329,184 of our intended $525,408! More detailed numbers will be provided at our Annual Meeting of the Congregation on February 5th. Save the date, as we are tentatively planning to celebrate our Ribbon Cutting on a revitalized, fully accessible Worship Center on the Feast of the Holy Trinity, June 4th, 2023! |
Our BEAUTIFUL new foyer area is nearly complete!
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The Rev. Jonathan Vanderbeck Mental Health Fund
In June 2021 as part of our commitment to prioritize mental health as a congregation our Congregation and subsequently our Congregation Council voted to create the Rev. Jonathan Vanderbeck Mental Health Fund. This fund is designed "to support members in paying for necessary mental health care" and as of the end of November has $1,039 in contributions but has not yet been used. If you are someone struggling to pay for mental health care, please contact Pastor Dustin for a confidential conversation. If you are someone who would like to contribute to this fund, please visit our Donate & Volunteer page, click "Give" and select "Mental Health Fund" in tithely's "Give To" box.
Update Our Parish Directory by Logging on to Realm Account Today!
As we've been talking a lot about lately at Messiah, my goodness, after so long apart and so many changes in our congregation's membership, WE NEED TO GET TO KNOW ONE ANOTHER! Our Parish Directory is a key tool to helping everyone know who is who. There isn't a week Pastor Dustin doesn't hear from one of our members asking for someone else's contact information, but if you are a member of our congregation, that information is right at your fingertips using our online Realm platform! While everyone's information is in Realm and Pastor Dustin, Heather and others use the system every day, 61 of our adult members still have never logged in to set up their profile. We'd encourage all our members to go to https://onrealm.org/MessiahLutheran73113 today. If you already have an account, click "sign in" and review all your contact information, update your profile picture and more. If you don't have an account, click "sign up" and get started! We'll be printing a new commemorative Parish Directory to be released at our Ribbon Cutting Ceremony for our new Accessibility Project in the new year, but if you can get your information updated ahead of time, that'll save our Council members a phone call. If you have any questions, please reach out to the Parish Office at 518.355.2311 and we can assist you further!
TCC Bottle & Can Collection!
Want to contribute to the growth of the Trinity Community Center as we work to knit community closer together here in beautiful Rotterdam, NY! One way you can support that important work is donating your bottles and cans to the Trinity Community Center's account Green Bottle Redemption Center! Located at 1809 Altamont Avenue, the redemption center is open Tuesday - Friday from 9a - 4p & Saturday from 9a - 2:30p! Thanks so much and please help us spread the word!