Five Calvin College students are currently spending the week in Three Rivers to work on the Imagining Space project at Huss School. Additionally, they’re meeting several local folks and exploring the meaning of place.
For more, read the daily entries at the Imagining Space blog and check out photos on Flickr.
Spring Break 2010
Preaching at Crossroads Community Church in Dyer, IN
Kirstin and I will be preaching this weekend at Crossroads Community Church in Dyer, IN. We’ll be speaking specifically about food and how we might live into the biblical narrative through our everyday food choices–a continuation of the ideas we explored during the Eat Well Food Tour from last summer. In fact, this is kind of an extension of the tour!
Crossroads has three weekend services–Saturday at 5:30pm and Sunday at 9:00am and 10:30am–and we’ll be speaking for each. We’re looking forward to spending time with the good folks at Crossroads!
Winter 2010 road journal on its way
The Winter 2010 road journal is being dropped off at the Post Office today and will make it to your mailbox in a matter of days. This issue of our quarterly print journal features several great pieces by various *cino writers, plus a photo essay highlighting the Imagining Space project at Huss School. A special thanks to Julie Bouman for helping with the mailing; we couldn’t have gotten everything done without her!
If you aren’t on our mailing list yet, you can sign up now for a free subscription to the road journal.
Introducing SUSTAIN *cino
Dear friends of *cino,
On Friday, February 19, the *culture is not optional board of directors met in Pennsylvania before attending the annual Jubilee Conference in Pittsburgh. We had great conversation at Beaver Falls Coffee & Tea about *cino’s identity and about fund raising.
The good news
Here’s the good news: our work is flourishing. It was fun to be at Jubilee and hear directly from so many people who are inspired by the road journal, who love writing for catapult, who read the daily asterisk quote every day, who want to come to Practicing Resurrection and who are excited to see what is sprouting in Three Rivers at Huss School. We also had many good conversations with college students and post-grads who are striving to discern Kingdom faithfulness in all things: career, family, place, church, relationships and more. We’re glad that the resources *cino already offers can provide some of what they need on their journeys.
The…other news
Here’s the…other news: we are on the edge financially. Last spring, we stepped out in faith to purchase the historic Huss School building in Three Rivers and it has stretched our organization to the extent that we have urgent needs for the building and other expenses. We board members are praying and trusting that God will provide–and we’re getting to work!
Introducing SUSTAIN *cino
SUSTAIN *cino will be our effort over the next few years to cultivate our resources through three phases–getting by, sprouting and thriving–and we need your help. We have outlined three budget goals that will allow the work of *cino–including the Imagining Space project at Huss School–to grow and flourish. We’ve broken down the goals into monthly target amounts:
- $2,500 per month: June 12, 2010
- $5,000 per month: End of 2010
- $10,000 per month: End of 2011
What we are asking of you now is to consider making a monthly commitment to help us meet our $2,500 per month goal by June 12, our one-year ownership anniversary Huss School. If $10 per month is what you can afford, you will be part of our foundation of many–after all, 150 gifts of all sizes helped us raise $25,000 in 40 days to purchase Huss School! Just think: if each of those 150 households gave $10 per month, we’d be over halfway to our first goal! And if you can afford $20 or $30 per month, you’ll help cover the share of someone who benefits from *cino’s work, but is in a low or no income situation.
Our experience has been that the foundation of *cino’s support will consist of many people like you catching the vision and doing what they can to participate. We are praying and working for major gifts and grants, to be sure, but we also need you to walk with us through the both the thrilling and the difficult times.
Our commitment is to keep doing and growing the good work God has called us to do through *cino and to stay in regular communication with you. Will you match our commitment with one of your own?
Yours in gratitude and trust,
The *culture is not optional Board of Directors
Jeff Bouman
Grant Elgersma
Gail Heffner
Sylvia Keesmaat
Tim Raakman
Hank Suhr
Rob & Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma
To set up a monthly donation or make a one-time contribution, please visit the *culture is not optional web site.
Possibilities and the necessary financial conversation
A good chunk of our board meeting on February 19 was spent discussing the financial needs of *culture is not optional. We’ve never been more excited about the work we’re doing and the possibilities that lie in front of us–especially the Imagining Space project. But to move forward, we really need to establish a much more stable financial foundation. Toward that end, we established three budget goals that we’ll be working toward over the next few years.
Getting by
$30,000 per year / $2,500 per month
- Basic building expenses (mortgage, insurance, utilities)
- Technology costs (server fees, domain registration, etc.)
- Printing and mailing
- Event fees (conference displays, etc.)
Sprouting
$60,000 per year / $5,000 per month
- All of the above, plus …
- A double mortgage payment (paying down principle faster)
- Additional printing budget for books in the Road Map Series
- Salary and benefits for director
- Funding for professional accountant
- Promotional budget
Thriving
$120,000 per year / $10,000 per month
- All of the above, plus …
- Additional mortgage payments, paying off the mortgage in 3 years
- Additional printing and mailing budget for expanded mailing list
- Additional printing budget for books in the Road Map Series
- Intern stipends
- catapult magazine/road journal honoraria
- Salary for part-time property manager
- Additional promotional budget
These budget goals are primarily operational and only extend for the next few years. We’re hoping that we’ll be able to raise additional funding through grants and other sources to help fund the renovation of Huss School.
We’ve set the following timeline to try to meet these goals:
- $2,500 per month: June 12, 2010
- $5,000 per month: End of 2010
- $10,000 per month: End of 2011
On the one hand, these goals seem ridiculously ambitious and unattainable. On the other hand, we feel like we’re simply following through on *cino’s vision. As we reflect on God’s faithfulness when *cino’s supporters contributed $25,000 in 40 days a little less than a year ago, an annual budget of $120,000 seems pretty realistic. And when we think of what we’d be able to accomplish with such a relatively small institutional budget, we get pretty excited …
We’ll be sending out more information soon about meeting our first goal!
