Let’s Celebrate! 

Let’s celebrate us!  In this article, I wish to celebrate all of the wonderful volunteers that give of their time, talent and treasure to help make LCHT the special place that it is.  I also wish to appeal to those congregation members who may be considering offering their time and talent. 

During the March congregational meeting we reviewed our various committees and their respective accomplishments, which are detailed in the 2007 Annual Report.  Did you know that in total we are blessed with 18 committees supported by 137 volunteers?  While it is true that some volunteers serve on multiple committees, the fact is, we have a lot of people that give their time and talent to one or more committees.   

In addition to our committee structure, we have many more volunteers that give of themselves in areas such as our congregational council, Sunday School, adult choir, bells, scouts, mission trip team, Relay for Life, and fund raisers, such as our chicken barbeque, Redner’s save-a-tape, gift card and candy sales, and the list goes on.  For example, Sally Miller recently reported that 34 volunteers spent many hours carefully preparing thousands of pieces of candy for our Easter candy sale fundraiser (at last count I think I consumed several hundred pieces myself!).  When considering these many volunteers in addition to our committee volunteers, we are easily approaching 200 or more volunteer opportunities! 

So what does all of this mean?  It means our spirit of support and contributing time and talent to our mission of serving Jesus is alive and well at LCHT!  And to all of you that contribute in some way, no matter how big or small, a huge THANK YOU goes out to you!  While we need to pause and say thank you to all of those that give back, we also need to look forward and see what challenges and opportunities lie ahead.  For this reason, I wish to reach out to those that are considering giving some time or talent but have not yet taken that first step.  Clearly volunteering your time is a personal decision, as many of us are challenged with balancing the demands of our daily lives. However, even offering a couple of hours a month working with a committee or participating in a function can prove to be rewarding. 

If contributing your time in some way is “on your list of things to do,” I encourage you to take the next step and give it a try today.  If you are not sure where to start, I recommend looking through our Annual Report to get a feel for which committee might appeal to you.  If you need a copy of the Annual Report, please contact Pastor Houck, our church secretary, or any member of council and we will be happy to get you a copy.  Committee chairpersons, Pastor Houck, or any member of our congregational council would be happy to spend time discussing our various volunteer opportunities.   

Bottom line is that the more time and talent we have from our congregational members, the more we can do in fulfilling our mission at LCHT.  Your new ideas and contributions will make us stronger.  Let’s celebrate the blessings we are afforded everyday.  Let’s celebrate what we can do together! 

Scott Gruber, council president