Dear New Covenant Family and Friends,
Welcome to fall. The kids kicked off summer worship with a a renewal of baptism worship. Each one of us got sprinkled with water to help to recall the baptism. This was in keeping with our Lenten theme of water, where the kids raised money with the fishes to buy a well share in Africa, a water filtration system for Flint, MI and water for those in need. The kids also participated in a (very wet) Crop Walk this year and spent time picking up trash along the way.
There we affirmed and confirmed the membership of Devon Gallagher and welcomed the transfer of Andrews and Esther from the Ghana Presbyterian Church. We enjoyed our outdoor worship in July and August with the help of Roger Held and the Choir who graced the entire neighborhood with their singing. The temperatures have been up and down, but our theme book Ezra, has been consistent throughout the summer. It has been a study in Repatriotian as the the Hebrews navigate their immigration back to Israel and the rebuilding of their temple and wall.
As always, we celebrated Easter with a Good Friday service, Easter sunrise worship and a joyous Easter Egg Hunt following our traditional 10 am worship.
TrailPraisers, our partnering New Worshiping Community has seen growth, with 5-6 families regularly attending worship, including over 30 people attending our spring Creation Worship lead by Pastor Rachel Mastin from Stillwater.
We are experiencing some transitions this year. Elizabeth Baldes took over being solo lead teacher, as our own Jillian Ludwig moved on to a full-time nutritionist job with the state. We hired on a former nursery school parent Tammy McNamara to assist and new hire Annie as a classroom aide with our 2, 3, and 4 year old cuties. The amount of growth these littles experienced is wonderful to see. We have at least 16 students registered this year!
Additionally Roger Cooper officially stepped down as one of our venerated Farmer’s Market Coordinators and we are adjusting to how to do advertising and signs without our usual crew. It’s been a good period to reflect as we’ve already put in 7 years, and our doing an 8th on how to make the market set up and take down and staffing more efficient and still as attractive to vendors and customers. Our refrain this year has been “if anyone could put up a sign” weekly or on their front lawn or continue a “ministry of presence” by hanging out at our table from 3-6 pm one Tuesday—it’s greatly appreciated. We are maintaining a fair presence with a goodly number of repeat vendors and have gotten to about 400 patrons a week. Continued thanks to those who coordinate, put up signs, table, buy & clean up!
Our Chicken BBQ, which is a lot of work, has not gone over as well this year. The weather has been largely uncooperative and one of the nights we were competing with a big America’s Got Talent Concert with Colonie local Madison (who got 3rd!). We earned about $400 and donated all of the extra meals to the homeless at Capital City Rescue Mission.
We had a very successful spring clean up with the help of the Capital District Church of Christ and are working to get some things up to code for our insurance. Many thanks to facilities for the bathroom, light, socket & door repairs. Trees seem to be the next big maintenance item on our list, and it would be nice to get our grounds spruced up in general.
In terms of stewardship, as of halfway through the year our Income stood at 49.9% of what we budget to come in, and our spending was 50.3% of what we hoped to spend. As always, I think when we are on budget it is an act of God. We are so close to being completely fiscally solvent after 8 years of consistent budgeting, fundraising, building-sharing, cost-cutting and faithful tithes & gifts from our congregation. Thank you for your faithful giving.
We look forward to another great fall !
Blessings,
Katy Stenta
10am Worship @NCPC, 6:30pm Good Friday Apr 7, 6:15am Easter Sunrise Livestream 