Dear Calvary Family,
It is budget preparation season at Calvary, and our staff and ministry teams are working on their budget proposals for 2020. We wanted to share a bit with you about where we are in this process and about the financial picture at Calvary as we enter into the final quarter of the budget year.
The finance team will review all budget requests and work on an overall budget proposal for the Coordinating Council to consider in their November meeting. Once a budget is approved by the Coordinating Council, it will be sent to the congregation to review by email, and we will have a church-wide discussion on the budget during Sunday School on November 17. On November 24, we will vote on the budget at the beginning of worship. We are grateful for everyone’s diligent work helping us to prepare a budget before the busyness of the holidays and the Advent and Christmas season at Calvary.
Each year, budget preparations are always a combination of looking at our past, present, and future: watching our track record of spending over the past 12 months, assessing the current needs of our ministries, and seeking to take steps of faith as God calls us forward. Last year, we increased the budget 15%, which was a significant leap of faith for the Calvary family! While we are in a healthy place financially, our giving as of the end of September is $428,925, which is $34,737 behind where our projected giving should be. To reach the budget by the end of the year, we need an additional $189,291. However, we feel like this number is well within our reach when compared to Calvary’s giving records in October-December 2018.
Additionally, for the past several months, we have been updating our church software and want to make sure everyone’s records are correct. You will soon be receiving the data we have in your records along with a statement of your giving for the past 9 months at Calvary to confirm this information is correct. As you look at your records, we also hope you will take time to consider how you might give to what God is doing at Calvary between now and the end of the year.
Thank you for your generous giving at Calvary. We are grateful for all the people who are investing in this process of planning and preparing for the coming year.
With gratitude and great hope,
Mary Alice and Phil
Up Ahead 10/10 10:00a - Meals on Wheels
10/13 9:30a - Sunday School 9:30a - Color of Compromise Small Group 10:45a - Worship 12:15p - Coordinating Council Meeting
10/14 10:00a - Men's Breakfast, Panera (Baylor)
10/15 10:00a - Meals on Wheels
10/16 6:00p - Bible Study: David 6:00p - Bible Study: Color of Compromise 6:00p - FUSE Kids 6:00p - Youth Bible Study 7:00p - Intergenerational Choir Rehearsal
Financials Jan-Sep 2019 Projected Budget Receipts: $463,662
Jan-Sep 2019 Actual Budget Receipts $428,925
Jan-Sep 2019 Actual BELOW Projection $34,737
Worship 10/13 Message
Messy: Entering Into the Mess
Scripture: John 1:1-5, 9-14, 9:1-12
Guest Pastor - Sharyn Dowd
Sharyn Dowd Preaching This Sunday, October 13
On Sunday, we will welcome Sharyn Dowd to the Calvary pulpit while Mary Alice is away visiting her family. Sharyn served Calvary as a ministry associate from 2003-2008 while teaching in the Department of Religion at Baylor. She retired from First Baptist Church, Decatur, GA in 2015 and now serves as a volunteer at Edgewood Church in Atlanta. We hope you will make Sharyn feel welcome with us as she returns to Calvary!
Panera Bread Men's Breakfast
Join the men for breakfast at Panera (Baylor) this upcoming Monday, October 14th, at 6:45am, for a time of fellowship and study.
3rd Sunday Hamburger Hullabaloo
For the month of October, our 3rd Sunday lunch will feature hamburgers and hotdogs. Calvary will supply the burgers and hotdogs so we are asking our Sunday School classes to provide the following:
All-Stars: Hamburger and hot dog buns and fruit YASS: Tomatoes, lettuce, and onions
Adult Blend: Cheese and chips Unique Blend: Chips Intergenerational: Desserts Youth: Help with clean-up
Cleansing the Temple
Ever think about the fact that when Jesus cleansed the Temple, he actually made a bigger mess? I imagine the scene with coins everywhere, tables overturned, newly released doves crashing into the side of the building, and disgruntled money changers waving fists and shouting about upstart religious fanatics. Thank goodness Calvarians clean when they cleanse! I want to say thank you to each of the 30 folks who were able to help with Calvary Clean-up this past weekend! These closets are clean!
Newcomers Breakfast on October 20
Are you new to Calvary this fall? Or, are you wanting to meet more people and learn about our different Sunday School classes and how to get involved? Our deacons would love to invite all newcomers to join them for breakfast in the Fellowship Hall on Sunday, October 20 from 9:30-10:30 AM to learn more about becoming part of the Calvary family. RSVP with TaNicia by Thursday, Oct. 17 at cbcinfo@cbcwaco.net.
Coordinating Council Update
This year one of the goals for Coordinating Council is to improve our communication with the Calvary family. Coordinating Council meetings are public and anyone is always welcome to attend. To keep you informed, we will share the meeting agenda in the Tower before the meeting. In addition, after the meeting, we will provide a brief summary of the meeting, along with a link to the minutes. We are excited about this year and the work we will be able to accomplish together. We will meet this Sunday, October 13 at 12:15 PM in the Fellowship Hall. Questions? Contact Karen Clark, Chair of Coordinating Council, at kclark@mclennan.edu.
Lunch at Truett on October 30
Are you a student at Truett seminary and interested in learning more about how to get involved in ministry and mission at Calvary? We’d love to invite you to join us for lunch between classes on Wednesday, October 30 from 12:00-1:00 PM in Room 309. Any Truett students, faculty, and staff are welcome to join! Please RSVP with TaNicia by Monday, October 28 at 12 PM.
Yard Sale and Fall Festival Volunteer Opportunity For years, Calvary has hosted a community yard sale every fall and spring. These early Saturday mornings have been an opportunity to raise funds for our missions trips as well as connect with our neighbors. The missions team has been dreaming up ways to reinvigorate the event, and this year we want to add a fall festival to the end of the yard sale as a fun way to engage with families and neighbors. We dream of tables full of items to sell, fall games, a pumpkin photo booth, and trunk or treat. To accomplish all of this, we need your help!
We welcome any gently-used items for the yard sale that you would like to donate: clothes, furniture, household items, electronics, children’s toys, etc. (No televisions, please). Donations can be stored on the stage in the Fellowship Hall.
We also need help on the days leading up to the yard sale on either Thursday night (Oct. 24) or Friday morning/afternoon (Oct. 25, Baylor Fall Break).
On Saturday, October 26 from 5:30 AM - 1:00 PM, there will be opportunities to help with set-up, hospitality, fall festival activities, and clean-up.
The Calvary family coming together to make this happen will make this a great day for and with our community, so please join in any way you are able! For more information, contact Jess Gregory at Jess_Gregory2@baylor.edu. Sign up to help at http://bit.ly/2nzqXQO.
Box Tops for West Avenue Elementary!
Box Tops for Education are found on hundreds of products from cereal and snacks to cleaning supplies and office supplies (https://www.boxtops4education.com). Each Box Top is worth $.10 each for a participating school. West Avenue collects and redeems Box Tops, and we have committed to helping them collect this school year. Simply clip the Box Top from participating products and save in a Ziploc bag or on a collection sheet printed from the website. Turn your Box Tops in to the collection box at Calvary in the Welcome Center. Thanks for helping West Avenue this year!
Meet Will Ward, Calvary’s Social Worker for October 2019 - May 2020
The first church I served was in a small Arkansas town of less than 4,000 people. First Baptist Church was the hub of that town, and when people needed help of all kinds they showed up in the church office. It was the job of each minister on staff to meet with these folks, learn their stories, and find out how we could help them best. We did our southern hospitality best to do so, but I never felt quite like we succeeded. I knew we could do more, and I wanted to figure out how the church could do this thing we called benevolence ministry well.
My thoughts and experience in that church led me to Waco, to Baylor, and eventually to Calvary. As Calvary’s social work intern in 2014-2015, I learned that the people who come to Calvary humbly asking for help, in what is many of their darkest hours, are not our clients, they are our neighbors. The fact that folks come to Calvary as our neighbors is why I love the Samaritan's Fund Team so much. I am so excited to learn to live into our name more and really help our neighbors in even better ways.
Diana Garland once told me the question of, “Who is my neighbor?” was posed to Jesus, but Jesus flipped the question around and sent it right back to the religious leaders for an answer. Calvary, who is our neighbor? How can we journey alongside our neighbors in a way that mirrors the Gospel? Because I really believe if we go out and accompany our neighbors, we will find very Good News right outside our doors. I am so excited to continue to journey with Calvary on this road as the church social worker in the coming year.
October: Domestic Violence Awareness Month
By Geneece Goertzen
In a few weeks, the Domestic Violence Response Team of McLennan Co. will be presenting an all-day conference on the topic of domestic violence. I am serving as co-chair of the DVRT Education Committee that is planning this conference, and we have been working hard for months to bring a wealth of knowledge on this topic to those who will be attending. There will be two keynote presentations, along with a number of breakout sessions. The conference is very reasonably priced, and includes lunch. Learning more about domestic violence is important for everyone and especially for us as a church as we seek to combat this crisis and work with victims in helping them recover. The conference will be held on Monday, October 21, in the Cashion Building at Baylor. See the attached flyer for additional info, and registration details. October is Violence Awareness Month Flyer
Additional events in October related to domestic violence:
October 8 - Truett Seminary will be hosting a Domestic Violence chapel service at 11 AM
October 15 - Day of Remembrance Ceremony for those killed due to Domestic Violence at 6:30 PM at the Suspension Bridge.
The I-35 bridges will also be lit purple on this date, to commemorate domestic violence awareness.
Extended Care – Need All Hands on Deck!
We are so excited that Calvary’s children’s ministry is growing! More children also means that we need more volunteers for Extended Care for our infants and Pre-K children during worship. We currently have 19 volunteers who faithfully serve in Extended Care once every 5-6 weeks. However, the dream of the children’s ministry is to have so many volunteers that everyone only serves once a quarter (every 3 months). We are asking for 40 more people from the Calvary family to volunteer for Extended Care. That means we need people of all ages and stages of life, men and women, involved in this important ministry. Please consider giving one Sunday a quarter to love and serve Calvary's children and families. We are so grateful to those who are already serving and hope to welcome many more.
Michael Huerter’s Master’s Thesis Survey
Calvary Family, In my last semester before graduation, I am researching and writing a thesis for the Baylor School of Music. I am focusing on people's experiences of worship and the ways digital media may impact how music works in our lives today. I am reaching out to multiple groups and congregations to get a variety of perspectives, and feel that the Calvary family would have valuable insights to offer! Responses will be anonymous and will not be specifically associated with a particular person or even congregation. The survey asks for written responses recounting your experiences in worship, and will likely take around 20-30 minutes, depending on how in depth the responses are.
Please submit responses by October 11.
The survey is an important part of my project, so thank you for considering this!
Fall Sunday Lunches: October 20, and November 24 (Harvest Meal)
Collection for Mission Waco Christmas Toy Drive - Month of November
Church-Wide Budget Conversation - Sunday, November 17 during Sunday School
Advent Wreath Making Lunch - Sunday, December after worship
Messy: Learning to Meet God in the Mess Join us for our new worship series: Messy. From the beginning of creation, God has been working with chaos to make something beautiful. Even Jesus moved toward people’s messes instead of away from them. And living in community with people absolutely calls us to step into the messiness of each other’s lives. It’s a reminder that there are no “quick-fixes” or easy solutions in the Kingdom of God. Following God in authentic ways is always going to be messy.
However, can we learn to meet God in the mess?
October 13: Entering Into the Mess
John 1:1-14 and John 9:1-12 Guest Preacher: Sharyn Dowd
October 20: Called to Mess Things Up
Matthew 21:12-17
October 27: The Messiness of Community Preacher: Ali Chappell DeHay
Contributing Financially to Calvary
Each week, we present our offerings as an act of worship. However, many of us pay for the majority of our expenses online or through an automatic-withdraw from our bank accounts, and each month when we pay our expenses, we can present an offering to God in these ways too. You can give to Calvary online at http://cbcwaco.net/give-to-calvary, but please note that 1-2% of your gift will go toward transaction fees. If you would like to set up an automatic withdrawal from your bank account, which has no transaction fees, please contact Phil Sitton at psitton@cbcwaco.net.
Let's be in prayer for one another. Click HERE for the prayer list.
Ministerial Staff
Mary Alice Birdwhistell - Senior Pastor mab@cbcwaco.net
