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Greetings!
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Welcome to the new Vestry eResource, a monthly email designed to share stories and tools geared specifically towards the work of our churches' Vestries. We hope these resources will be a help to you as you serve your congregation and community in this important ministry.
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Church Safety Notes
Summer is a great time to catch up on those "to do's" that will make your church safer. Do a quick check of the following, and if there is a problem you'll have time to resolve it before September.
- Any room used for a meeting needs to have a window in the door or interior wall that allows people to see who and what is happening inside. Windows in the doors are the easiest (and probably least expensive) option but we've seen churches with long hallways cut various shapes of windows in the walls of Sunday School rooms with different colored framing, which is a colorful, artistic, and clever way to make their church safe.
- Make sure all new teachers or those working with youth have completed the safe church training. The training can now be done online, so encourage your vestry and other congregational leaders or interested adults to sign in and watch the videos.
- Two counters are needed to count money. If one person is making the deposit, make sure you use a locked night deposit bag, your bank will provide one, and make sure that it is locked in the presence of two people.
- We have heard that altar supplies have walked out in some places. Make sure your sacristy is locked and that the supplies (especially wine) are secure. Ask your Altar Guild to keep an eye on the status of supplies so you can catch any irregularities and take action.
- With the hurricane season arriving, do a walk-around the building to do an inspection of things that may need to be addressed. Also, make sure you have a way contact parishioners in an emergency, to make sure all are OK.
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Transforming churches
Check out this page on the Episcopal Church website! "Transforming Churches" is a series of recent case studies of Episcopal Churches that have been able to reverse decline, thrive, and see substantial growth. These stories offer an in-depth analysis of Churches in many different parts of our denomination and in vastly different contexts. Get inspired
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FREE TENS stewardship resources
Our diocese is a member of the Episcopal Network for Stewardship. Because of this, all our churches have free access to download the 2013 "Stewardship Narrative Series", a resource designed to support your fall annual giving program. Get it here
Log in:
username: generous password: giving
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ECF's summer web conference series
Episcopal Church Foundation is one of the best vestry resources on the web, and this summer they have a full schedule of web conferences on topics like planned giving, capital campaigns, stewardship, vestry leadership, finances, communication etc.
see the schedule
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