What is the Memorial Fund?

If you walk by the nursery and peek in the window you will notice a beautiful new large size rug depicting Jesus and his words, “Let the little children come to me.” Maybe you have sat on one of the benches out in the courtyard or outside the sanctuary. Certainly you have glanced a time or two at the stained glass windows in the church. Did you know recently the congregation increased the hours of our Youth Director, Jimmy Smith, to full-time? What do these things—a rug, benches, stained glass windows, and our youth director—all have in common? They were all gifts from the memorial fund.

What is the memorial fund? It is a special fund here at the church that is made up of gifts “in memory” or “in honor” or “in thanks” of a loved one. When someone dies and the family desires a gift to be made to the church, the gift doesn’t go into the general fund of the church; the gift goes to the memorial fund. Some families will designate a certain item or ministry to which they would like their memorial gift to go. Others only give the designation that it is
to go to further the ministry of the church. These memorial fund gifts are then used to buy needed items that go above and beyond the church budget—items that will serve the ministry of Our Savior in special ways. The items in themselves, a window, a cross, a bench, become special reminders of special loved ones. But more importantly these gifts and the items they purchase, speak of the one who has brought us each to this place, our Lord Jesus. The gifts aren’t just in memory or honor of a certain person, but more fully they are in memory or in honor of that person’s faith and what their faith in Christ meant for their life and
means even now.

And so we worship in a sanctuary surrounded by other brothers and sisters and Christ, but not only that. All throughout the church and all of the buildings, we find we are surrounded by tangible reminders—a cross, a Lectionary Bible, a Paschal candle, a bench, a window, a youth ministry and a welcoming carpet—of the faith of other brother’s and sisters, who not only live on in our memories, but live on in life with Christ.

In gratitude for all of the ways we are surrounded by

Christ’s love,

Pr. Shelly