This past month, we welcomed representatives of the Senior Pastor Call Team who provided Council with updates on the call process. Both Council and the Call Team continue to be excited about the future of Good Shepherd as the team continues to progress with the Pastoral search. We are also excited to welcome our Vanderbloemen search consultant who will be worshiping with us in the coming weeks.

The demand for Preschool continues to grow! Duane Tiede, Patty Schiewe (Preschool Director), and Tom Anderson (COO) met with an architect in mid-November to discuss construction which would add an additional classroom and a Jack-n-Jill shared bathroom.

Council continues to closely monitor our budget. Giving is 91.4% of budget and 88.8% of last year. Our cashflow is currently $93,000 ahead of budget with the biggest contributors being the underspend in salaries & benefits, consultants, admin, and the Preschool budget being ahead from increased enrollment. Our Generosity Team met with the consultant from Generis who completed an analysis of financial trends over the past few years.  The consultant provided several recommendations for increasing congregational generosity and tackling the budget deficit.

The Safety & Security team has made tremendous progress over the past month. The team continues to work on updating our emergency handbook and is actively working to schedule ALICE training (active shooter) for early 2023.  All first aid kits were recently inventoried and restocked. Thank you to the volunteers who serve on this team!

We look forward to celebrating the birth of Jesus with our Good Shepherd family during this Advent season. We hope to see each and every one of you at our upcoming services:

• Encounter Christmas XIII | Worship Center
  • Thursday, December 15 at 7 PM and Friday, December 16 at 6 PM or 8:15 PM

• Blue Christmas | Sanctuary
  • Monday, December 19 at 6:30 PM

• Christmas Eve | Sanctuary
  • Family Service – 12 PM
  • Contemporary – 2:30 PM and 4 PM
  • Traditional – 7 PM and 8:30 PM
  • Candlelight – 11 PM

• Christmas Day | Sanctuary
  • Sunday, December 25 at 10 AM

• New Year’s Day | Sanctuary
  • Sunday, January 1 at 10 AM

Read more about Advent and Christmas 2022.