FROM OUR MINISTER: Melanie's Miscellany

FROM OUR MINISTER: Melanie's Miscellany
New Year, New Attitude

We begin a new year at First Church with lots of changes around the congregation.

We say good-bye to Religious Education Director Coleen Murphy, who is moving on to concentrate on her job with Common Ground. Many thanks to Coleen for all she did to rebuild our Sunday School after the Storm. The current regular attendance and enrollment is back up to pre-Katrina standards.

We welcome our new Religious Education Director Lydia Pelot-Hobbs, who begins this month trying on the position for size. We are excited by Lydia's enthusiasm and energy, and impressed by her qualifications and recommendations. Look for Lydia to introduce herself at church at services early in the new year.

We also say good-bye to Office Administrator Mandisa Jackson, who position was eliminated this year as a budget tightening measure. We thank Mandisa for her dedication and all her work for the church, and wish her well on all her future endeavors.

This leaves a gap in coverage at the church office, and we'll need lots of volunteers to fill in on Mondays (my day off), as well as help out on weekdays and evenings with the church databank, communications, the church calendar, and lots and lots of copying. Please let me know if you have some free time and are interested in helping the church with some clerical and administrative duties on a regular or one-time basis.

We're moving ahead with improvements to our physical plant -- a new sign will soon appear on the corner of Jefferson and Claiborne, and be sure to check out the new steps to the chancel in the Sanctuary, a gift from Marcie Brennan. Other areas of the church will also get work as slowly but surely we make our way from the devastation wrought by Katrina.

Another change -- we have showers in the courtyard (just in time for cold weather!). Thanks to several volunteers and some donations, the Rebirth Volunteer Center has installed some more showers in the church courtyard. This should ease overcrowding after those long workdays for our guest volunteers from round the country.

New ideas have sprung up for nationwide fundraisers that will also be FUN-raisers -- a chance to welcome people from around the country and around the world and give them an authentic experience of Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest. There's also an idea that we could gather in intergeneratioal groups and decorate secndline umbrellas which could be marketed to ourselves (doesn't everyone need a secondline umbrella?), to volunteers staying at the Rebirth Center, to other New Orleanians at local arts festivals, and to people all over via our website. Look for announcements asking you to pitch in on all of these great ideas.

It's a new year, and there's lots going on at First Church. Come to church, to worship, to social events, to work days, and see what's going on, and notice all the changes the new year has brought. Your energy, your ideas, your talents, are needed here. Be part of the change!

In faith and hope for 2009,
Rev. Melanie