Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Council Tree,

As another very weird year comes to a close, we find ourselves having again experienced significant highs and lows. One of our shared highs is that God continues to surprise us with the success of our outdoor garden ministry.  Six years ago, many of you took a leap of faith to trust that we were being summoned to reach out to our community utilizing the outside of our building through a community garden.  Today we are seeing the fruit of that faith. 

This past summer, we saw the energy and momentum as many of you prepared each week for crowds averaging 35-40 people each Tuesday. People came not just to receive food but to linger and experience community. Additionally, throughout the week people regularly used the space for personal reflection, meetings, and social gatherings. We want to lean into this strength and further this vision. 

We have big dreams for how our entire campus can be transformed into a park that intentionally builds bridges to our community. The priority for that park now is our long dreamed vision of a high-quality children’s play set.  Leadership believes that with creativity and intentionality this playset will amplify our ability to build community alongside the garden. The bad news is that good playsets are expensive. The good news is that we already have most of the money!  

To engineer the space, gain city approval, build the play set, and plant accompanying vegetation adds up to roughly a $300k project. As some of the numbers are not yet firm and cannot be solidified for several months, we are targeting to raise $25k in end of year giving that will allow us to complete the project this summer.

This is a unique ask in that our end of year giving typically provides about 35% of our annual budget, which of course we’ll need for the year to come.  So, we want to be careful and note the specific nature of this ask is for “Above and Beyond” giving on top of whatever you may already be tithing to Council Tree here at the end of the year.

As the Council deeply trusts the body of Christ, we are asking that we would simply go before the Lord and discern what the Lord would have for each of us in this.

Should you desire to participate in this special project to help build bridges to our community you can write a check with the memo line indicating “play set” or give online specifically to the category “play set” before or on December 31.

Peace & Every Good,
Your Church Council