With God's Hope~Our Journey Continues...

Seventy-six people gathered in Atonement’s name on Saturday evening January 28, 2006 at a specially called meeting. The purpose of the meeting was to vote on the resolution that was mailed to each Atonement family requesting their presence at this meeting. Hard questions were asked and answered during the discussion led by Building Ministry Team Chairperson Ron Lorenz. After excellent discussion concerning what our financial challenges over the next three years will be, the question was called for and a ballot vote was collected and counted. The vote was 71-5 to borrow the sum of $1.5 million dollars from the Mission Investment Fund of the Evangelical Lutheran Church for the purpose of building a new sanctuary and narthex as soon as possible. It has been and will continue to be a difficult journey for all of us as we will be increasing our budget significantly for the next two years. The Building Ministry Team has struggled for several months together with the Architect and General Contractor to bring this project in budget. Finally the window opened by leaving out approximately $170,000 dollars worth of work to be done inside the sanctuary. This will enable us to build the entire project to completion outside. There will be no basement but the narthex will be finished up to the new sanctuary. The projects omitted are the ceiling, sound system, carpet and minor things that can be added at the last moment with contingency or other yet to be collected funds.

What a journey the next nine months will be! Construction will begin as soon as possible and we will celebrate a ground breaking ceremony hopefully in early March. If all goes well, we should be in our new facility by November 2006. Keep praying for Bob Saas and Scott Boduch, our architects, as they continue their work. We now add Tony Miller, the General Contractor to our prayers. We will also be adding the sub-contractors by name to our prayers as they do their work. We want them all to know that we care about them as we watch them build our Vision of “Living in God’s Love ~ Reaching Out With Hope” that began with the capitol campaign called “God’s Hope ~ Our Journey!”

After the Building Loan Special Meeting was adjourned, the Annual Meeting began with President Joyce Fisher guiding us through the reports and bringing us to the challenging 2006 budget of $442,889.00 which passed unanimously. Jerry Bowen and Cathy Nicholson were reelected as Treasurer and Financial Secretary respectively for another year. (We thank Carla Bowen for her help too) Marilyn Andersen was officially elected as Secretary after being appointed by the church council in September 2005. Synod Assembly Delegates Randy and Julie McNitt, Pastor Jim and Pastor Del, along with Katy Howard as an alternate, were elected by a unanimous ballot.

Please pick up your Annual Report in the narthex so that you will be informed as to what your church family has been doing and is planning for the future. Please pray for your staff that they might receive wisdom and insight for the decisions in the future. Pray for your Church Council and the Building Ministry Team. Lots has been done, but there is much yet to be done. A special thanks to Ron Lorenz, Chairperson of the BMT, Jan Harding, Steve Riedel, Bob Lombard, Michael Lewellen, Ron Andersen, and Jade Santoro. They had done an excellent job with impossible circumstances.

Pastor Jim and I are proud to be your Pastors and we ask your prayers for wisdom to be good pastors for the coming years. Please pray for each other as we journey together.