Latest Update

Why Are We Doing This?

We believe that God calls and uses us to do His ministry at Bethlehem Lutheran Church.  We express that call through our mission statement, “Building the Family of God through relationship with Jesus Christ.”   We also believe that God blesses us with the resources to do this ministry and challenges us to use the resources according to His purposes and calling for us.

In 2009 we constructed the Community Center as one way of responding to God’s challenge for us, to “do what He is blessing.”  The Community Center helps us fulfill our mission!  Currently we are spending over $160,000 per year to pay off our debt on that building.  For several years now (at least since 2015), we have talked about how we can “free up” some or all of those funds for other purposes in fulfilling our mission.  Something always came up that delayed that discussion.  Now seems to be the right time to take action, and in June the Voters chose to start a debt reduction Capital Campaign this Fall.  The goal of this campaign is to be “set free” from our debt so that we can be “set free” for using these resources in other ways in fulfilling our mission.  Thanks be to God for setting the challenge and blessing (resources) before us. 

We boldly ask for your prayers and participation as Bethlehem Lutheran Church seeks to continue to be “set free to build God’s family.”

Case Statement

Since we know that “the Gospel cannot be bound (2 Tim 2:9), this campaign is about freeing us to more effectively do our mission of building the family of God. It frees up resources for us to serve and love well. It gets us all pulling together in the same direction. It proves that we can go through the hard times and take the next steps into the future.

We have all been led by God to be at Bethlehem. He has arranged us, the parts of His body, just as He wants (I Cor. 12), and the body is still developing. At this Bethlehem, there is more room in the inn!

This campaign will enable the Bethlehem faith family to continue to “do what God is blessing” – to serve and connect more with our community, with our members, and with our God!