No matter whether it’s a church or some other ministry organization, I have decided that serving in any kind of ministry is THE most stressful, challenging occupation in which one can be involved. It ought not so to be, but it is clear that our enemy (Satan) attacks ministry more than any thing in the universe. The other thing that makes ministry difficult is that it nearly always involves people. = )
Archive for the 'Ministry' Category
Our annual ministry banquet was a success. We had 69 warm bodies present, but there were a number of last-minute cancellations and no-shows. Since we had planned to have enough food for 100, we have LOTS of delicious cashew chicken left over. That is okay, as we will give much of it away to some of the families who attended.
It was a great evening, and we believe that those who came were informed, inspired, and encouraged. The AIM students did two excellent presentations, “Faithful” and “Thank You.” Why DO I wear mascara when I know they are going to present?
The offering was astonishing in the good sense. In fact, we were overwhelmed at the generosity of the donors. We also had lots of volunteer help, which really took a load off Scott and me. There are things we need to remember for next year, and some changes we should make, but overall, the banquet accomplished its goals.
Now I just need to figure out creative, dry, organized storage for all the supplies that we’ll be able to re-use next year. That, however, will be a challenge for another day.
Added bonus: Scott’s team is going to the Super Bowl!
My first piano lesson in two months will happen tomorrow, and I am very not ready. Thankfully, the lesson is at 3:15 PM, so if I get everything done in the morning (and that would be a first), I will have plenty of time to practice, right?
That’s nothing compared to the video shoots Scott and I havev been trying to do lately. Yesterday morning we battled sunlight and noisy bugs. This morning it was just a matter of trying to get the right background and say the right things. We’re trying to wrap up a promo video for our ministry, and I won’t tell you how many takes it took to get a fairly good version of a one-minute spot.
But you could guess.
I like email, but sometimes it can be darn cantankerous.
Our ministry has an email list. We send updates to our partners roughly every week (or every other week, or whenever Scott says, “You know, we haven’t sent an update in a while. Would you write one today?”) and sometimes daily. Lately, we have learned that many of the folks on our email list are not receiving what we send.
Troubleshooting queen that I am, I did a trial (experimental, not judicial) yesterday. I sent out an email asking everyone who received it to reply with “got it” in the subject line. I received two replies, which, out of nearly 150 addresses, was disheartening. I use Outlook Express to get my email.
I then went to the online inbox for the address to which people had been asked to reply. It was empty, but I noticed that there is also a “junk” folder and a “trash” folder, both of which said “empty” beside them. I had never actually opened either of those, because obviously I could tell by looking at them that they were (duh!) empty. However, something urged me to open the trash folder anyway, and lo and behold there were almost 200 messages in there, some from up to six months ago! So “empty” didn’t mean the folder was empty. It meant that I should click on the word “empty” in order to empty the folder. Aha! I’ve been home all along, but now the lights are on.
I will not bore you with the details of trying to figure out how and why all those replies got into the trash folder. Suffice it to say it involved another hour or so of computer fun, fun, fun and all kind of gyrations with our ISP, the web-based email provider, mail forward, and account settings. I enjoyed reading all 175 of those replies and I almost cried with gratitude. You see, for months, we have not heard much from our partners and we assumed that people just didn’t care. Those emails showed that LOTS of people do care a great deal! Yay!
I think it’s all straightened out now, and I think I can hit mail forward and receive into Outlook Express the messages that are being sent to me. Of course, that doesn’t solve the problem of a LOT of our outbound ministry updates being returned to me undeliverable, (all suspiciously to yahoo addresses. . . hmmm. . .), but that will be a challenge for another day.
And now my trash folder is really and truly “empty.”
It’s 4:30 PM. Do you know where your donor receipt letters are?
Published January 12, 2008 Ministry Leave a CommentMine are in the outgoing mail box! Yippee!
Anyone who runs a non-profit corporation knows what January means: donor receipts. Yes, we are the folks who send you those lovely letters – before January 31 – that document how much you gave to a church or ministry the previous year. In years past, we did this all with a rather convoluted Excel spreadsheet, but in 2007, we began using QuickBooks for Non-Profits, assuming that it would whip out nifty donor receipt letters come January.
It’s never smart to assume, and QuickBooks for Non-Profits, while full of many very useful bells and whistles, does NOT generate the necessary letters (sigh). Hopefully the program will be upgraded to do this soon. Not to worry; My Hero exported stuff to Excel and manipulated columns and mail merged something and came up with a zillion (no, really just 85) donor letters that only needed me to manually enter in each contributor’s total amount given. Then, if any individual donation was over $250, I manually listed all the donations that individual made.
Our totally nifty color laser printer zipped out the letters in no time, and then we had to print the address labels. We figured out in QuickBooks how to select which addresses we wanted to print. (Not everyone on the mailing list gave in 2007.) This involved putting a check mark next to each of the 85 desired addresses. I sent all that information to our trusty HP inkjet, the only one of our three printers that can print labels and cardstock. It requires the labels to be hand-fed (kind of like a testy pet), which I did. They came out illegible, because I needed to change the black ink cartridge – which I did.
I went to print the labels again, but alas, alack, QuickBooks no longer had that information! Back I went to the “print labels” dialog to manually re-select the 85 labels I needed to print. I was not pleased, but surely the labels would be printed soon. Pressing “PRINT” again, the first sheet of labels jammed in the printer. I was not being entertained, and I admit that I did say some unkind words about my trusty HP inkjet.
The printer began printing gibberish, as it always does when paper mis-feeds, and I struggled for some time to stop the print job without having to re-boot. Mission accomplished, and I announced to Scott that I would try for a third time to print the blessed labels, but that if it didn’t work, I was going to save time and just hand-address the envelopes. For the third time, I went through the list and selected the 85 desired addresses.
It worked. Well, it almost worked. One page had only one label on it and it was smeared, but no big deal. I could certainly hand-write one address.
Next step was signing the letters. During that part I like to pretend that I am a famous author signing books I’ve written.
Then came the folding, being sure to include the necessary itemizations and (for local folks) reminders about our upcoming banquet. I only cut my lip twice licking the envelopes, which wouldn’t have mattered much, except that I cut myself in the same exact place both times. Ouch. And don’t bother suggesting that little-water-filled tube with the red triangular sponge on the end. I have tried those, and they just don’t work well for me. And I don’t like peel-and-stick envelopes, either, because in my opinion (and I do have an opinion on EVERYTHING) they are a pain to open. I have resigned myself to being a confirmed envelope-licker.
I was careful to put the proper label on each letter as I went, so hopefully Joe Schmoe won’t call me to say he got Susie Q’s donor letter in his mailbox.
Stamps followed – fairly mindless, although I do like my stamps straight, and I have been known (although not today) to v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y and c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y peel off a crooked one and stick it back on properly.
The last step was the return address labels. They also require very few brains, and being such a bear, I was able to finish them in only a few minutes. I cleaned up all the mess and put the donor receipts exactly where they should be: in the outgoing mail box. Now I have eleven and a half months to enjoy not thinking about them.
