Since October 15, First Lutheran has been in an ‘every-member-visit’ mode. Thirty visitors have made their way to almost 150 families thus far. The conversations our visitors are having are priceless.

Last week I talked with a longtime member who is far less engaged with First than he used to be, “for no good reason”, he said. Through the course of our 45-minute conversation, I heard about the challenges his family has faced over the last year including a retirement, two elder deaths and three imminent graduations. What is so incredible to me is that most of my visits are like this. So much is happening in the lives of each and every family at First as parents age, kids grow, jobs change and life goes from one stage to another. Every time I leave one of these visits, I feel so much better about the health of our church as I know a little bit more about what my prayers should include and I understand how interconnected we already are. The ways I preach and the programs we offer take shape from these conversations. The vitality of our fellowship comes from knowing each other.

First Lutheran’s capital campaign, Our Church ☩ Our Time, launched October 15th with a kickoff event that included great food, time to talk with friends and time to listen to our keynote speaker, John McHugh. John shared four stories about what it means to love, what it means to live with gratitude and what it means to be hospitable. We say we want to become more grateful, loving, hospitable people so John’s stories were very welcome. While he spoke, our kids played in the Pertzsch gymnasium, which I heard (from my kids anyway) was great fun! “We should do that more often” was what my 10-year-old son told me. Maybe he’s right.

What if First Lutheran no longer had a mortgage payment? What if we had a Foundation (endowment) that is able to generate $50,000 per year rather than $12,000 to $15,000? What if we gathered enough financial resources to address all the deferred maintenance issues that have accumulated in the last ten years?