Redeemer’s Generosity Campaign
My friend, Jennifer, and I got to really use our event planning skills this winter/spring at church. In January, our church launched a Generosity campaign. The goal of the campaign was to retire our mortgage debt, start a seed fund to hire a pastor to lead a church plant, start a fund to deal with delayed maintenance on our current building and a fund to pay for an expansion on our children’s wing. Jennifer and I joined the steering committee as the events team and were in charge of the large Generosity dinner, two roundtable dinners for those who couldn’t make it to the Generosity dinner, and a dessert reception following the advanced commitment night. It was a ton of work but we loved every minute of it because we can’t get enough of planning events together. It was funny when our pastor texted us both about it, he said he knew we were both super busy so wondered if we knew of someone else who could take on the project. Jennifer and I both had the same conversations with our husbands that we’d be crazy to take on such a huge project but we also knew we couldn’t say no to planning these fun events. Nick was so excited when we said we’d do it. We all had such a great time planning for this huge endeavor at church and it has been amazing to see how God provided all the money that we had hoped to raise. We’ve already paid off the mortgage, funded the church plant and raised the funds for the delayed maintenance. Our church has been through so much in the past but God has been so faithful to sustain us!
The first, and biggest, event of the entire campaign was the Generosity Initiative Dinner. It was the kick off event for all adult members and active attendees. We set up 18 tables in the sanctuary and spent many hours setting up for this beautiful night for our church family. We enjoyed fellowship together, food from Lewis BBQ and desserts from Crust and Crumb bakery. It was such a wonderful event!
In February, we hosted two Roundtable dinners. These were much smaller dinners for the folks who couldn’t make it to the initial dinner. We recreated a smaller version of the dinner in the meeting rooms at church. They were much smaller but still very special evenings for our church family. Unfortunately, I had the flu and couldn’t attend the 2nd dinner but Jennifer and our team of helpers pulled it off beautifully.
Our final event was the Advanced Commitment Night. This was a night of worship and a chance for people to go ahead and make their commitment pledge before the official commitment Sunday. We planned a dessert reception following the worship service. It was incredible to hear the numbers committed after this first night. We’ve all been blown away at people’s generosity and the Lord’s provision for our church!
