Initial Round of Commitments

We had a productive meeting last Sunday (yay, us!) and agreed to support the following organizations with funding and/or volunteers this year:

Wilkinsburg Community Ministry (funding)

EECM (funding, volunteers for men's shelter meals)

Pgh Community Food Bank (funding)

Neighborhood Academy (funding, volunteers for tutoring and meal prep)

Mars Home for Youth (funding, possible 'muscles and mops' volunteers as needed)

Camp Crestfield (funding toward operating budget, volunteer support for capital campaign and of 'muscles and mops' nature as needed)

Malawi Partnership (funding)

Just Harvest (funding)

Church World Services (funding)

CROP (volunteers for walk, funding for related expenses)

Global Links (volunteers, funding for mailings to Covenant Hospital)

Action for Darfur (pending announcements re march this year -- volunteers to march, funding to sponsor march)

Hosanna Industries and Open Hand Ministries are likely to be targeted volunteer opportunities for the Muscles and Mops subcommittee.

The committee voted unanimously to recommend that Session support the single-payer healthcare overture to Presbytery.

Items for the next meeting (date to be determined):


(1) Determine funding available from Peacemaking offering for our distribution (Maggie); identify local need for funding (committee)

(2) Brief updates on status/requests (some of this may fall under Reports from Subcommittee Leaders): Goats for Rwanda, Pgh Pastoral Institute, Squirrel Hill Urban Coalition (possible move out of this committee's budget line), Habitat for Humanity info (Tom), Sojourner House info (Tom), Breachmenders (Joe/Cliff), Hazelwood Presby Church.

(3) Reports from each of the subcommittee leaders

(4) Treasurer report on amount collected from regular 'special offerings': Peacemaking, Joy, One Great Hour of Sharing, Lazarus

Looking Ahead!

Our next full committee meeting will be held Sunday, March 9th, after worship. We will meet in the parlor again.

January 13th Meeting Agenda

1.Updates and Announcements

• Annual Report for 2007/2007 Spending
  
  
• Fellowship/Post-Worship Reception: March sign-ups
  
  
• Meeting of Pittsburgh Presbytery’s Hazelwood Partnership: Tuesday (1/15/08) at 7 PM at Hazelwood Presby Church. Louise C. attending. Others welcome.
  
  
• Organizations’ Mission Statements
  
  
• PIIN: Update (Diana, Tom, Louise F.)
  
  

2. For Discussion and Action

A. Endorsement and consideration of contribution re writing group to meet at Sixth on explorations of faith. (Nora)

B. Prioritization of efforts and contributions through sub-committees.


3. Next Meeting

Committee Meeting

We will meet from 7 PM till 8 PM on Monday, November 5th, in the church parlor (across from the kitchen). Main agenda topics are the budget and leadership for the subcommittee structure.

All are welcome.

Special Offerings

At Connie Hunter's request, we ran a short notice in the bulletin earlier this month to let new members or visitors of Sixth know that we do participate in the Presbyerian Peace offering, but that we do so in May (many congregations collect the Peace offering during World Communion Sunday at the beginning of October).

I thought it might be useful to include here on the blog the 'special offerings' agreement that the Church & Community Committee presented to Session last year. This schedule was approved by Session and is our congregation's current practice.
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We recommend that the Church and Community Committee assume oversight of our church's special offerings. To implement this responsibility for the year 2007 we recommend the following:

That the One Great Hour of Sharing focus should occur between the dates of March 4 and April 8 (Easter) and that Jane Fox will oversee this offering with regard to the ordering of materials and various forms of publicity;

That the Peace Offering should be collected between May 13 and 27 and that Nora Johnson will oversee the process;

That the Joy Offering should be collected between December 9 and 23 and that Diana Wood will oversee the process; and

That special offerings in support of the Lazurus Fund should occur on the four Sundays of the year 2007 which are 5th Sundays in the months of April, July, September, and December. Dave Wood will oversee this process and decide on publicity and procedures for dealing with this offering.

Opportunities Ahead: PIIN and Hazelwood

(1) The PIIN Covenanting Event will be held on Sunday, 11 November, 6 p.m., at St. Benedict the Moor Church, 91 Crawford St. (near Mellon Arena). Fr. Jared Jackson invites Sixth Church to attend and bring a banner. Please post here or let Kit know if you are able to attend.

(2) The elders and congregation of Hazelwood Presbyterian Church invite their partners and friends to join them as they celebrate and show appreciation for their new pastor, Rev. Leslie Boone, Sunday, October 28 at 3 p.m. at the church.

Project Amistad at East Liberty Presbyterian

You are invited to hear a presentation by Susanne Frerichs, missionary in Mexico on October 15, Monday evening, at 7:00 pm at East Liberty Presbyterian Church. She is U.S. coordinator of Proyecto Amistad of the Presbyterian Border Ministry (PBM). The PBM is a joint ministry of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico.

Susanne is visiting Pittsburgh Presbytery from October 12-19 as part of the PC (USA) Mission Challenge '07- a denomination-wide effort to reconnect local congregations to overseas missionaries.