A Thank You Letter from Pastor Jim Dew
Thank you New Journey Lutheran Church
Pastor Gallen and New Journey Lutheran Church,
Without question, the most rewarding part of my work over the past year as your Interim Director for Evangelical Mission has been walking alongside more than a dozen strategic and ethnic-specific ministries across our synod. This role has provided me with a wonderfully unique opportunity to serve as a mentor, advocate, grant writer, evaluator, consultant, and friend to some of the most innovative and courageous leaders and faith communities you will ever meet.
Each of these ministries is both vital and vulnerable. They carry out incredible work in Jesus' name in neighborhoods and communities that have often experienced neglect and invisibility, despite our best intentions as a church. None of this impactful work would be possible without our synod's commitment to intentional financial investment.
This is only possible because of your faithful and often sacrificial giving. Few people know that fifty cents of every dollar given to the synod by congregations through their benevolence is then offered as our synod's benevolence to the churchwide expression of the ELCA. This tithe funds our synod’s DEM as well as 64 other DEMs and countless vital ministries across the ELCA. Perhaps even fewer realize just how much of that giving comes back to us in various forms. In 2023, our Grand Canyon Synod ranked third among all 65 synods in the number of grants provided by the ELCA including significant grants provided annually to our vital, yet vulnerable, strategic, and ethnic-specific ministries.
It was a blessing to serve as your Interim Director of Evangelical Mission and I will be keeping you in prayer as a new season begins. I want to express my heartfelt thanks to all of you for your generosity and commitment to growth in giving. Thank you for the difference you make and for the lives that are blessed because of you. Thanks be to God for this work and ministry that we are blessed to share together!
With heartfelt gratitude,
Pastor Jim Dew
Former Interim Director of Evangelical Mission
Grand Canyon Synod, ELCA
For your records for fiscal year Feb. 1, 2024 - Jan. 31, 2025, as of August 1st, 2024, the Grand Canyon Synod Office of the Bishop has received from New Journey Lutheran Church:
Congregational Mission Support Received: $6,050
Congregational Mission Support Planned: $12,000
Rev. Dan Potaznick, CFRE
Director of Generosity & Strategic Development
Office: 602-957-3223 l Cell: 631-275-2918
Office of the Bishop, Grand Canyon Synod |GCsynod.org
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America |ELCA.org
1819 E Morten Ave., Suite 110, Phoenix, AZ 85020
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