Church of the Good Shepherd will celebrate a century as a parish this year.  What better time than our 100th anniversary to engage in a capital campaign?  We have not had a capital campaign in over fifty years, and our parish leadership believes that now is the time to raise the money necessary to make much-needed repairs and improvements to our church building.  Our vestry voted unanimously to begin this campaign for our future.

A capital campaign is completely separate from our annual operating budget.  Money raised in our campaign will be used not for regular operating expenses such as salaries and office supplies, but for projects that address deferred maintenance, capital improvements, and repairs.  We hope that every single member of our church will participate in the capital campaign, and that we will be able to raise enough money to ensure that our building will continue to be an inviting and beautiful place for us to gather for worship and fellowship.

Our goal is to raise a little more than three times the amount of our yearly pledges and offering plate money, or $400,000.  Pledges can be paid over three years, allowing givers to spread their pledge over time.  If we are able to reach our goal, we will be able to address all of the most pressing needs in our physical plant.  The vestry has articulated those needs as follows: a new and energy efficient heating system; repair or replacement of the organ; repair of the masonry and sidewalk leading into the church on the Chute Street side; refurbishment of the parish office, hallway, upstairs kitchen, hallway, lounge, and upstairs bathrooms; repair of the flashing and roof at the rear of our sanctuary and repair of the inside wall.  If we raise more money than these projects cost, we would be able to begin to rebuild our endowment, replacing money we had to withdraw during the years we ran a budget deficit.

We want to hear from each member of our parish about what each of you think are our most pressing needs.  What do you think we should do with money raised in a capital campaign?  What should our priorities be?  We want every person to have an opportunity to help prioritize the projects, and we want to know what our parishioners think we should do first.  Some of our parishioners will be visited at home by our campaign consultant.  If you would like an in home visit, just call the office and we'll schedule a visit.  We will have three group sessions that will more fully outline our goals and allow for questions.  Every parishioner will be invited to fill out a confidential questionnaire about the campaign.

I hope that every parishioner will attend one of these three gatherings or will allow a home visit.  The three group sessions will be on Sunday, April 21 from 4-5:30 at James's and my house; Tuesday, April 23 from 7-8:30 at the church; and Sunday, April 28, during coffee hour at the church.  Home visits will be conducted in the weeks prior to the group gatherings.

This is a very exciting time for our parish.  We want to be sure that every member of The Good Shepherd family is included in the capital campaign, and that we celebrate our first hundred years by ensuring we are vital and healthy well into our next century.

David is the patron saint of Wales, and he is revered in that country as a beloved priest and courageous leader.  Little is known of David's early life, but we do know that David's family were Christian and that his name means "the beloved."   He was born around 544 A.D.  

When David was still a young man, he founded a monastery near Menevia in Wales.  He went on to found eleven other monasteries in Wales, and to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  Though David wanted nothing more than a monk's life of prayer and study, his reputation as a scholar caused him to be summoned to a gathering of bishops, in order to combat a heretical movement that threatened to split the church.  David proved so learned and eloquent that the archbishop chose David to succeed him as Bishop of Wales.  

David proved to be a very good bishop, and the Church in Wales prospered under his leadership.  He was said to be strict though loving in the running of his monastery in Menevia.  The brothers gave him the nickname "the waterman," which may mean that David allowed the brothers to drink only water at meal rather than the customary wine or mead.

David moved the bishop's seat to Menevia, and it is still considered the seat of the Bishop of Wales, though the city has been renamed in David's honor, Ty-Dewi, which in Welsh means "House of David."  

Chuck and Ginny Barthel, Dorothy Brown, Christine Camper, George Chace, Betty Fraser, Gloria Graves, 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.