Zion E-News (12-12-2019)

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I met someone for coffee this morning at Tea Trade Cafe on 44th Street between Ivanrest and Byron Center. Tea Trade Cafe supports Women at Risk International and is connected to their store the WAR Chest Boutique. WAR works to help women and children who have been trafficked. By selling products they provide employment for women and some men who have been trafficked and also financially support their efforts to free those who are currently being trafficked.

As I sat talking with a good friend, I kept thinking, why don’t more people come here? So, in my little effort to spread the word, if you are meeting someone for coffee or tea, check out Tea Trade Cafe. The service is great, the tea was good too, and you will be making a difference in the world just by meeting a friend for coffee.

This concludes the advertisement for Tea Trade Cafe. We now resume our regularly scheduled E-news. 🙂

Connect to God
In our Sunday School Christmas program this year, our students will present a play in which a teacher sends students to different rooms to look at stories of exile: Adam and Eve being sent out of the Garden of Eden, the Israelites enslaved in Egypt, and the Babylonian exile. As they discuss these stories they realize that the Christmas story is the beginning of the great restoration that Adam and Eve looked forward to. In Jesus, God is once again in close relationship to his people. With Christmas he really is “”God with us.”” Join us for a great morning of worship led by our Sunday school students.

If you would like a copy of the worship service, you can receive a complete copy by contacting Tom Verbrugge or you can find the weekly messages on our website.

Grow in Community
Barb Overweg is recovering at home after a successful heart surgery last week.

We extend our sympathy to Mike and Kathy MacGraw and Tom and Megan MacGraw in the passing of their  mother and grandmother, Grace Bluhm, Monday morning morning. Please hold the family in your prayers during this time of loss and grief. Visitation will be Friday from 5-8 pm at VanderLaan Funeral Home in Hudsonville. The funeral will be Saturday, December 14, at 11 am also at VanderLaan Funeral Home.

Serve the World
At our Christmas Eve service, we will be holding an offering to support the ministry of United Church Outreach Ministry in Wyoming. For about 10 years now, we have partnered with UCOM through our Personal Care Pantry. UCOM provides material and educational assistance to meet basic needs, improve quality of life, and promote self-sufficiency in Southwestern Kent County.

We are in the early stages of planning a trip to Kenya in June of 2021. While there, we will see the progress on Jeremiah’s church we have been supporting, have a project planned to work on, do some visiting and touring of Mahi Mahui where Jeremiah and Mary live, and finish off this trip with a Safari. If this sounds interesting to you, please contact Pastor Rick.

Administrative Details
On Tuesday this week, our Consistory met with Mike Stadelmayer from Church Growth Services (CGS) to decide if we should go ahead with a capital campaign to fund our building remodel. After interviewing about a dozen members in our church, surveying our staff and Consistory and another 140+ people through a paper survey on a Sunday in November, CGS formed an assessment of our ability to move forward with a building campaign. According to their surveying of our congregation

  • over 80% of those surveyed are already planning to support the campaign and just under 80% think now is the right time for a capital campaign.
  • Of those who are unsure, the reasons given were a need more information, a concern about our present giving levels, or a personal worry about their own ability to give.
They ended with the following comment: “Seldom In our recent experience have we seen a congregation as totally enthused to proceed with their project as we have at your church! We could attribute this extraordinary support to many things. However, in our observation, we believe it boils down to a trust of leadership and appreciation for their efforts on this project, a sense of growing momentum and unity within the church body, and a strong desire to  reach more people in the community for Christ. God has blessed your ministry with growth and vibrancy. CGS believes the time is right in which to proceed.”

As a Consistory, we agree with CGS that now is the time to move forward with a capital campaign and so have appointed Ken Johnson and Steve Landstra as Co-chairs of the campaign. They will be recruiting and training their team with CGS over the next few months and we anticipate conducting a campaign pledge drive in May of 2020. We will continued to share more information as it becomes available.

We have recently begun accepting donations to the General Fund and Building Fund online or via text. If you are interested in supporting the ministries of Zion financially, you can do so from our website www.zionreformed.org by clicking on “Give Online Now” or text 1-616-219-2181 using one of the commands listed below:

  • Text ‘give’ to be prompted on how much you’d like to give.
  • Text ‘update’ to change the credit card or bank account you give from or to modify recurring gifts you’ve set up by text
  • Text ’50 weekly’ to set up a weekly gift of $50. Replace 50 with the amount you’d like to give. You can also replace ‘weekly’ with ‘biweekly,’ ‘monthly’ or ‘yearly’.
  • Text ’50 fundname‘ to give $50 to a specific fund. Replace ‘fundname’ with the keyword General or Building to designate to specific fund. Replace 50 with the amount you’d like to give.
  • Text ‘unlink’ to unlink your phone from the text giving service so that your phone is no longer authorized to make donations

You can also give directly from our website by clicking on the  “Give Now” button below.

We continue to thank God for his provision of all of our needs and for the generous support of our congregation with their time, talent, and treasures.

Fiscal Year to date budget: $310,570.96
Fiscal Year to date contributions: $285,558.19
Thanksgiving Offering to date: $10,001.00