Salem's Green Newsletter

We are making a big transition in one of our communication practices. This week we are mailing a paper copy of the monthly newsletter for the last time. We will no longer print and mail in bulk The Forecaster. Rather, we will email it to as many people as possible. We will still print and mail a paper copy to our shut ins, of course, and to those who do not have electronic access, and we will still print and have some paper copies available at the church.


We are transitioning to a new way of communicating. This is good stewardship as it is cost effective (the new postage rate just about doubles our cost of mailing), saves paper, and utilizes the technology that many if not most people already have in their homes or access to elsewhere. We are certainly not the first congregation to make this change. Many churches have already begun this practice. The Iowa Annual Conference also continues working to have good stewardship practices.


The Bishop announced that the Sessions Committee (the group responsible for planning our Annual Conference meeting) voted to conduct the 2012 Session of Annual Conference as paperless as possible. Therefore, they are encouraging as many members as possible to use electronic devices to download the Pre-Conference Manual instead of requesting a paper copy. It was also announced this year that the annual Journal will no longer be printed. It will be available on the Conference’s website and also as a PDF, a “portable document format” that provides a digital image of text/graphics and looks like a printed document. When we email the newsletter from the Salem church office, it will be sent as a PDF.

I am encouraging those who wish to receive our newsletter to make sure the church office has their current email addresses and to download Adobe Reader if it isn't already installed on their computer.

The Forecaster, our current newsletter has been printed and mailed for more than 23 years. Communication is very important in the church and our newsletter is an important part of that communication. This is another transition in the history of the church, but we will continue to share important information and the Christian message with the congregation and beyond. We will continue to share the church’s story, encouraging and building up the congregation as disciples of Jesus Christ.


Our purpose in publishing The Forecaster is to educate, inform, and edify the congregation. As one local church communicator put it, "Communications ministry provides a way to take a large number of ministry events, needs, activities, and opportunities and package them for presentation to the congregation and the community…Communication helps the congregation grow spiritually, be uplifted, feel a part of the church community, be active in the life of the church, and make informed decisions (about giving, for example)” (from Communications 2009-2012 © 2008 by Cokesbury).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Church Under Water

Image
I spoke to Pastor Linda Bibb this evening. She’s the outgoing pastor at Salem Church where I have been appointed effective July 1. Salem is just a couple of blocks from the Cedar River in downtown Cedar Rapids. She told me they were evacuated from the church building at 4:00 pm yesterday. The wonderful people of this congregation worked together sandbagging and moving as much as they could to the second and third floors. But the river was too much. Linda said the water is at least 8-10 feet deep at the church building. There is a car port over one of the entrances and the water is above that car port. So the water could be to the second floor now. This picture from the Cedar Rapids Gazette shows how high the water was earlier today at the Dairy Queen which is right across the street from Salem United Methodist Church. Unfortunately, the river hasn’t even crested yet so the flooding will probably get worse. We will attempt to get to Cedar Rapids tomorrow. In the midst of all this we ar...
Read more

Membership at Salem

We have accomplished much on our official membership list. It takes time and precision to re-create a membership list lost in the flood! I am thankful for all the work our administrative assistant has given to this project as well as for the many volunteers who have spent countless hours contacting people to confirm their membership status. While we are not completely finished, we have discovered that we have many active members as well as our treasured older members who were formerly very active. Like other congregations we also have some members who confirmed their membership status but have not been upholding our membership vows. As a congregation we are responsible for reaching out to inactive members and helping them become active again. A name written on a page does not make a member. Salem members promise to be loyal to Jesus Christ through The United Methodist Church and do all in our power to strengthen its ministries. Specifically, we promise to faithfully participate in its ...
Read more