In the almost three years that I have been your rector, I have seen over and over again how much the people in this parish care about our church.  On my very first day of work, I remember arriving early in the morning, and one of our parishioners was already there, applying fertilizer to the lawn.  Later that day, three parish leaders donned work clothes to strip wallpaper and help paint my new office.  To quote a beloved parishioner, "That's how we roll at The Shepherd!"  And almost every day since, I've seen how true that is.  There's the young man working with his dad on his Eagle Scout project, fixing drainage problems at the church; young people and their folks out raking the lawn in spring and fall; our beloved furnace guy, keeping our elderly burner going even on the coldest days; our altar guild polishing the silver and ironing the linens; a whole family working to clean up the parish hall after it flooded; a mom and daughter team weeding our garden.  Just last week, before a wedding, there was the senior warden, vacuuming the sanctuary and cleaning the bathrooms before the bride and groom arrived.  The people at The Good Shepherd love this church, and are willing to work hard to care for it.

I realize that "the church" is not just our building.  "The church" is us--the people of The Good Shepherd.  But having a safe, welcoming place for our community to gather, and making sure that we care for our building and grounds is important.  Folks at The Good Shepherd are not afraid to roll up our sleeves and get to work.  But for a number of years we have had to defer much-needed maintenance on our building because of financially lean times.  While volunteers have worked very hard to maintain our building and care for the grounds, we have been unable to    make some vital repairs and improvements for many years, actually for several decades.

In the past few years, we have seen steady growth in attendance, and in financial support, for our parish.  After several years of deficits and drawing heavily on the endowment, we have balanced our budget.  Indeed, we finished 2012 with a balanced budget a year ahead of our goal, and we presented a balanced budget for 2013.  Our vestry, wardens, and rector believe that our parish is on firm footing, and that we are ready to work together to address our deferred maintenance and make some much-needed improvements and repairs to our building, inside and out.  This year, we will celebrate our centennial, 100 years of The Church of the Good Shepherd.  Our entire parish leadership believes that this is the perfect time for a capital campaign that will help ensure that our church will be here in the next century.

The vestry has voted unanimously to begin this capital campaign because we believe that we are called to be good stewards of the building and grounds.  Together we can make sure that we have a beautiful place to worship and gather as a parish family; offices and meeting spaces that allow our staff to do their jobs well and that are comfortable places for meetings, classes, and time together; a building that is energy efficient and environmentally friendly; and the ability to make beautiful music during our worship.

We want to give every person the opportunity to be heard as we set priorities for our campaign.  We also want every person to participate.  In the next few weeks, we be conducting in-home meetings, group conversations, and offering written materials outlining our hopes for the campaign.  We will be talking more about the specifics and our goals during our Sunday worship services, and here in the E-News.  We will provide frequent updates and opportunities for participation as we go forward.  The goal is to complete our capital campaign in the next few months so that we can begin some work as early as late summer, and that we will be able to complete work on the church in 2014.

Join us as we celebrate our first hundred years and help us to ensure that our church is a beautiful and welcoming place for worship as we begin our next century.  Why?  Because that's how we roll at The Shepherd.

Eric Liddell won a gold medal for Great Britain in the 1924 Olympics.  He was also a member of the Scottish National Rugby Team.  It was his athletic ability that made Liddell world famous, but his achievements on the track and the rugby pitch were far less important to Eric Liddell than his commitment to Jesus Christ.  Liddell was a missionary and preacher, and devoted his entire life to serving God. 

Eric Liddell was the son of missionary parents, and was born in China in 1902.  He was sent as a young boy to the UK to boarding school, and as a teenager enrolled at Edinburgh University.  Liddell would go for years without seeing his parents.  His older brother was his primary source of stability and support, as were athletics, at which he excelled from childhood.  He decided at an early age to be ordained and to become a missionary like his parents.

Eric Liddell won a spot for the 1924 Paris Olympics, and he was expected to run his best event, the 100 meters.  But the trials for that event were scheduled for a Sunday, and Liddell refused to run; his church (the Church of Scotland, or Presbyterian Church) taught that Sunday was to be kept as sabbath, and Liddell refused to break the sabbath, even in order to qualify for his best event at the Olympics.  Though he was urged by powerful leaders and some in the press to run for king and country, Liddell believed that racing on a Sunday would compromise the teachings of his faith, and he held firm.  Instead, Liddell managed barely to qualify for the 400 meter, an event in which he had never competed.  He went on to break the world record in that event and to win the gold for Great Britain.  (He also took the bronze in the 200.) 

Eric Liddell returned from the Olympics and finished his university studies.  Immediately after being graduated, he went to North China to serve as a missionary and was later ordained.  He married a fellow missionary from Canada, Florence Mackenzie, and together they had three daughters.  The family endured significant hardship due to the conflict between China and Japan.  When Japan entered WWII and invaded China, the British government urged its citizens to leave the country.  Liddell sent his wife and daughters to Canada, but he and his brother Rob refused to leave.  Liddell was held by the Japanese in a concentration camp, where he earned the respect of his captors and was allowed to minister to fellow prisoners.

Liddell probably suffered from a brain tumor during his imprisonment, and he died in the camp in 1945, just a few weeks before the camp's liberation.

Chuck and Ginny Barthel, Dorothy Brown, Christine Camper, George Chace, Betty Fraser, Bernice Herrick, Allan Johnson, Deborah Katt-Lloyd, Lisa Kimball, Robert Knoettner, Mary Anna Krause, Tony Lopes, Carole Lutton, Maureen Manzelli, Jim McCallum,  Dave McDonald, Lynn McDonald, Rheta C. McKinley, Mike Morgan, Sara O'Brien, Rhonda O'Keefe, John Parsons, Carolyn Poor, Eleanor Schott, Kevin Smith, Ron Smith, Anita Webb and Ashley Westerman.