How Grace Kingston is using its Congregational Development Grant

By Joe Jackloski
[From the December 2008 issue of the Grace Kingston newsletter]

Grace Church had been the recipient of Congregational Development Grants for the last two years. These Grants are intended to help us in our outreach efforts, and to promote the growth of the Grace Church. This money is entirely separate from out operating budget and to be used solely to help Grace Church grow in numbers and spirit. These grants are not automatic. They are awarded to those congregations which make a genuine effort to reach out into the community.

We have embarked on a number of efforts in community outreach, from Katrina relief to Women with Children, V.I.S.I.O.N. and most recently, our Sunday School coat collection.
Another part of outreach is to make Grace Church more visible to the community at large, and that means advertising. By the time you read this, you may have already seen a novel idea at work for Grace: A brightly lit billboard at Kingston Corners advertising what Grace Church has to offer our friends and neighbors by telling them good things are happening here.

In the near future, we will be using another portion of our grant to join with other Episcopal Churches in the area in a TV ad campaign. This co-operative effort is aimed at raising awareness of the Episcopal Church in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

We are truly fortunate that the Diocese of Bethlehem has entrusted us by funding our evangelism efforts. In light of our very tight operating budget, without this grant outreac such as this would simply be impossible. We hope we prove to good stewards of the Diocese trust by making every effort to see those funds are well spent.

In closing, if you have any worthy cause you believe deserving our support, by all means tell a Vestry member so the we may give the proposal proper consideration. We truly want the world around us to know Love lives here!