FBC Raleigh News • August 25, 2020
RISK MANAGEMENT TEAM FOR COVID-19

In the newly revised church bylaws, adopted on December 18, 2019, the church council has responsibility for “risk management, including physical security, safety, and emergency procedures.” In recent years, we have been addressing security and safety issues, and we have reviewed our emergency procedures, recognizing the need for more work in this area. But until March of this year, we had not thought seriously about a major pandemic and all of the associated risks and decisions. Now we have, and we are grateful that we have a group identified as having the responsibility to address these concerns.

Up until now, the ministerial staff, in consultation with the church council, has been making decisions related to COVID-19 – which activities and events to cancel, which to hold, and which to adjust in minor or major ways. We developed a general set of guidelines by which to make decisions regarding church activities onsite, outside groups wanting to meet in our facilities, and church events scheduled to take place away from the church. We have managed, learning as we go, and you have been very supportive of our efforts, but are at a place where we need help, the kind of help that a more defined group with explicit authority and needed expertise can provide.

So, we have formed a risk management team for COVID-19. Ron Maness, from the church council, has agreed to serve on the team and will chair it. Joining him in this work are John Baldwin, Sam Ewell, Alice Marshbanks, and Hollis Yelverton. If you know these people, you realize that we have medical expertise, workplace safety wisdom, and wise and seasoned decision makers. We are asking them to guide our process for decision-making throughout this pandemic in consultation with the ministerial staff and church council. We deeply appreciate their willingness to help with this critical task!

Chris Chapman, Pastor
Mary Nash Rusher, Deacon Chair
BIBLE VERSES FOR DAILY USE
  • Tuesday, August 25: Psalm 8; Exodus 2:11-15a; Romans 11:33-36
  • Wednesday, August 26: Psalm 8; Exodus 2:15b-22; Matthew 26:6-13
  • Thursday, August 27: Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45b; Exodus 2:23-24; Ephesians 5:1-6
  • Friday, August 28: Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45b; Exodus 3:16-22; 2 Thessalonians 2:7-12
  • Saturday, August 29: Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45b; Exodus 4:1-9; Matthew 8:14-17
  • Sunday, August 30: Exodus 3:1-15 and Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45b; Jeremiah 15:15-21 and Psalm 26:1-8; Romans 12:9-21; Matthew 16:21-28
  • Monday, August 31: Psalm 83:1-4, 13-18; Exodus 4:10-31; Revelation 3:1-6
DEACON ON CALL • AUGUST 23-29
Amy Galvan (919) 818-6746
DON'T FORGET!
Mary Alice's Drive-By Goodbye celebration is this Sunday, August 30 from 2-3pm. Many of us are used to entering the back parking lot via Hillsborough St, but to keep from blocking traffic all over downtown, we'll enter the McDowell parking lot on the opposite side, from Edenton St. The church's reserved parking spaces along Edenton St. will serve as a waiting area for those driving through to wish Mary Alice well in retirement. Remember to keep those goodbyes brief so we don't clog up the roads - offer her a word of encouragement, a smile behind the mask, and leave her a love note to share your best memories. Balloons, posters, and festive streamers on your vehicle are very much welcome! A map is included below for reference on entering an exiting the parking lot.
FAMILY PROMISE WEEK

Like everything else in our world, Family Promise is operating differently this year. To minimize risk for all involved, Family Promise has shifted to housing families experiencing homelessness in their transitional housing apartment building rather than in churches. Two families are sharing each apartment. Currently they have 7 families, 18 people total.  While housing and transportation are not needed this fall, meals still are a need, which brings our new changes for hosting the week of September 20-27.
 
• First, we are being asked to provide evening meals to individual family units Monday – Friday and to deliver a list of needed breakfast and lunch supplies the Friday before. Family Promise is finding that families have more than enough left-overs for dinners on the weekends.
• Second, Family Promise has paired us with Asbury UMC to help split up the load. Asbury UMC has agreed to cover the beginning of the week (Monday-Tuesday) and they will be providing lunch supplies. We will be handling the end of the week (Wednesday-Friday) and breakfast supplies. Our friends at Sacred Heart also remain committed to working with us and so they will be handling Wednesday night. We will receive a firm headcount, list of food allergies/restrictions, and a family by family list of breakfast/lunch needs on September 16.

We'll need three individuals or small self-organizing teams to do the following:
• Team 1 – Breakfast supply team. This team will need to take the list we get Wednesday, shop for, individually bag up groceries and deliver them to the Family Promise Day Center by 2pm on Friday, September 18.
• Team 2 – Thursday Dinner team. This team will need to provide an evening meal on Thursday, September 24, pre-divided by apartment to the Day Center at 5:30pm.
• Team 3 – Friday Dinner team. This team will need to provide an evening meal on Friday, September 25, pre-divided by apartment to the Day Center at 5:30pm.
  
Questions you all may have:
• Do they need paper-ware? – no – families have stocked kitchens.
• What about drinks? Request for drinks will be part of the breakfast/lunch request list. No additional drinks need to be provided with dinner
• Do we need to provide condiments with meals? No – the day center has plenty in stock.
• Costs - our Family Promise budget can cover these meals and so teams volunteering can submit their receipt to the church office for reimbursement.
• Where is the day center? Day Center is located at 903 Method Rd, Raleigh, NC 27606. Just off of Western Boulevard.

If you are able and interested in signing up for one of these teams, please email Holly Ivel by September 14. She will coordinate with you directly, and answer any further questions.

RISE AGAINST HUNGER MEAL PACKING

2020 has been full of new ways to do old things and Rise Against Hunger has worked hard to find safe but productive ways to continue their goal of stopping world hunger. Leah Reed and Nancy Phillips visited their warehouse this week and they feel good about their set-up to ensure proper social distance between volunteers.

We are now seeking volunteers to sign-up for one of two shifts on Sunday, October 11 at the Rise warehouse location at 3200 Wellington Court, Suite 111 (near Gresham’s Lake). The 1st shift is 1-2pm, and the 2nd shift is 3-4pm. These one hour sifts will allow us to keep the numbers smaller, so work stations can be spread out all across the warehouse. Also, the hour break will allow us time to properly clean equipment, work stations, and bathrooms between shifts. We're asking that everyone wear a mask, so that we can do this as safely as possible. Work stations will be set up based on the relationship of our volunteers. Some will work great for family units and others are designed for non-related individuals. There is room for everyone!

To sign up, please go to FBC's Rise Against Hunger website and register. On this site, you can also read more details about safety precautions.

We're looking forward to this opportunity to be in the same room with some of our church family as we do our part to stop world hunger. For questions or more information, please email Nancy Phillips.
CHILDREN'S DRIVE-THROUGH SUNDAY SCHOOL CELEBRATION

The end of August marks the end of a year of Sunday School and, though it’s been different, we’re thankful for the opportunity to spend it together. For some, it was in person from September – March, or on a screen from March – July, or in a backyard in August!

We want to celebrate the year we had and welcome the new year of Sunday School by having a drive-through Sunday School celebration this Saturday, August 29, 4-5pm in the church parking lot. This will give us a chance to thank last year’s teachers and meet next year’s teachers. It will also give our teachers a chance to see you and share a little goodie bag with each of you! Cars will drive through with their windows down, and teachers will come to your car to speak to you briefly, handing out goodie bags. We ask that everyone please wear a mask.

Pelican Snowballs will be there to give every child a FREE snowball! Your goodie bag will include a ticket for a snowball. After you greet your Sunday School teacher, you’ll drive around to the other end of the parking lot and get your snowball! You can eat it in the parking lot or get it to go. If you eat it in the parking lot, just remember to socially distance while you’re eating since you can’t eat a snowball with a mask on! As a general rule, let’s aim for 4-4:30pm for preschool families and 4:30-5pm for grade school families, just to try to avoid a bottleneck. Hope to see you all on Saturday!
VIRTUAL CHURCH CONFERENCE

We had a great experience with our first-ever virtual Church Conference in June, so we're planning on doing it again! Please mark your calendars for Wednesday, September 2, at 5:30pm. The Zoom invite for the meeting is listed below, as well as a call-in number for those who would rather join via phone. We will send out the needed attachments that normally would be on the tables via email before the meeting. Several deacons (and their families) are available to help with the technology. If you need assistance, please email Deborah ahead of time and we will get you connected with a deacon. We look forward to seeing as many of your faces as possible on September 2!

Meeting ID: 824 2402 5801
Passcode: 453627

  Phone number: +1 646 558 8656   
Meeting ID: 824 2402 5801
Passcode: 453627
CONTINUED MAIL DELAYS

We have been made aware through inquires that several checks mailed to the church on July 27 never made it to the church. Around that date we were transitioning from picking up mail at the post office to resuming our mail delivery to the church.  The post office has confirmed there is no mail being held for us. So, if you mailed anything to the church the week of July 27, it may not not have reached us. If you mailed a check, please see if the check has cleared your bank. Sorry for this inconvenience. If you have any further questions, you may email Wayne Hager or Jodi Schmidt.
TUTORS NEEDED

Normally, a new school year brings joy and hope as we look forward to new knowledge and new experiences for our children. With COVID-19, the new school year brings stress and anxiety, not just to adults but also to the children. For our clients who are recent
refugees or immigrants, the challenges are exacerbated because they don't have the language skills, and some are having trouble keeping up with schoolwork. The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) is seeking tutors to help 20+ clients, ranging from first grade to high school. ​

If you are interested, please email Thuy Dancik, and let her know the following information to best match you clients in need:
  • Grade level of interest
  • Commitment timeline (i.e., frequency, day, time, start date)
  • Preferred number of students per session
  • Any previous experience (optional)
  • Any foreign languages spoken
BEING THE HANDS AND FEET OF GOD IN THE MIDST OF A PANDEMIC

The biggest challenge in this pandemic has been how to balance serving individuals in need while also working to ensure we are not contributing to the spread of the virus. Having served our community for over 35 years, the Clothing Ministry team knew we had to find a way to continue this ministry in the midst of this pandemic. We have spent the summer brainstorming new strategies for distributing the summer inventory we already had in stock, and creating new protocols and procedures in order to keep volunteers and guests as safe as possible yet still enable us to receive, sort and distribute donations. 

THIS SUMMER: From May to July, we had more than 35 volunteers work in small teams, following new church protocols, social distancing procedures and wearing masks to make individual bags of clothing, sorted by size and gender. These volunteers put together approximately 1180 individual bags of summer clothing, just from the inventory we had collected at the time we closed back in March. These bags contained a total of over 5000 articles of clothing. Then, to get these bags into the hands of those who needed them, we researched and learned of other agencies who already had a viable avenue for distribution and were connected to many of the same agencies and individuals that we currently served.

We were able to work with Note in the Pocket to distribute our children and teen bags. This agency works through social workers and counselors (our school system is their largest client) to give clothing to children in need and their families. Healing Transitions received our Men’s and Women’s clothing bags. This organization runs both a women’s and men’s treatment center in Wake County, serving up to 150 men and 100 women at a time in their overnight centers. Both agencies were grateful for our support in this way and were able to immediately distribute the individual bags to those in need, many of whom were current guests of our ministry.

WHAT’S NEXT? Moving forward, we are planning to do a deep clean in the Clothing Ministry area, now that the inventory has been moved out. We will then make modifications to our space so that we are able to implement new safety procedures, working to minimize the risks for guests and volunteers, as we continue to find new, creative and meaningful ways to serve our community. As soon as we complete these tasks, our team will post updates on the Clothing Ministry webpage and keep the congregation and community informed of the new policies and procedures for how we plan to move forward, as well as new and different ways in which you can donate clothing and volunteer to assist and support the Clothing Ministry team. Stay tuned!
AAWC'S WEEKLY SCHEDULE

Each week, we'll start posting And Also With 'Cue's weekly schedule. We post this on our Facebook page, but we want to make sure you all have this information as well. We will let you know our regular lunch schedule and if there will be outside events on the weekend for you to attend!

Come eat with us this week:
August 25-28, 11am-1:30pm (or sold out)
church parking lot
August 28, 5:30-8pm • Oberlin 401 Apartments
August 30, 11:30-1:30pm • Ekklesia Church Picnic

Have an idea about how to giveaway food in our community? Email Leah!
SLIGHT CHANGE OF OFFICE PROCEDURES

While the church office will remain closed to the public for the immediate future, we will have someone in the office Monday through Friday, 8:30am-5pm to answer the phone and let people in for pre-approved activities (mail, janitorial, and food deliveries; maintenance work; and a few small meetings). The staff and church council continue to monitor all realities related to COVID-19. In addition, we are in the process of forming a risk management advisory group that will help us make decisions related to reopening. We still encourage you to contact any of the ministers if you have a pressing need, using the following email links: Chris Chapman, Mary Alice Seals, Trey Davis, Lynn Lingafelt, and Leah Reed.
WAYS TO GIVE

There are several different ways in which you can continue to support the church financially during this time of social distancing. We know many people are facing their own financial challenges right now and have been very generous already, but a number of people have asked how they could support the church while we are unable to gather together physically. Wayne Hager has provided the following answers to this question.

• We continue to receive mail daily. Any gifts mailed to the church will be processed and deposited as soon as possible.
• We will continue to debit bank accounts through auto drafts as we have been instructed by donors.
• If you have set up a recurring donation through one of our electronic options, those donations will continue without interruption unless YOU make a change.
• If you wish to begin electronic giving, please go to this link where each of our options is explained.
• If you are considering a stock gift, please visit this link for instructions. 

If you have any financial or giving-option questions, please email Wayne Hager.
AMONG OUR FAMILY
A link to the entire prayer list may be found below.
Please use your church directory for mailing addresses.
THE RECORD WE WROTE
Week of August 18, 2020
Current Week Revenue: $24,828.00
Month-to-Date Revenue: $67,121.49
Year-to-Date Revenue: $936,305.05
Month-to-Date Expenses: $63,340.72
Year-to-Date Expenses: $860,562.63
Heck Jones: $7,298.00
SUBMIT A ROSE WINDOW WEEKLY ANNOUNCEMENT

Do you have an announcement that you would like to include in the Rose Window Weekly? All information must be submitted by Thursday at noon, to be included in the following Tuesday's edition. Just fill out the Google form in the link below, and we'll make sure to include it in next week's publication.



For any questions concerning the Rose Window Weekly,
contact Leah Reed. Email Leah here.