On to the next 175 years!
We have had quite a few weeks at Christ Presbyterian Church as we celebrated our 175th Anniversary – the return of Natalie and Derek Handley with their band for a worship service; an organ and harpsichord concert that raised money for our partners at the Nehemiah Center for Urban Development; preaching by former Pastor Dale Chapin and he had time with our long-term members; a potluck where we presented the first three grants from our Energizing Mission Campaign (see below); and then worship services on the actual day – Oct. 4 – when our congregation came into existence in 1851 (you can find them here — 9 am and 11 am).
All of the stories and many of the videos from our history series are on our Substack page, so you can check out any of them you missed. The videos we showed at the potluck are in order of showing on our YouTube page – plus one more from Glen Reichelderfer about one of our members who inspired him – Thelma Johnson. There will be a video of the whole evening at the potluck being put together by Lindy Anderson, and we will link to that once it is done.
We received congratulatory greetings from Sen. Ron Johnson, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, and Dane County Executive Melissa Agard. And the Cap Times had a nice story about our history – here’s the link.
So many people worked together to make this happen, even though I was getting a lot of the credit. The core team for planning was Sharol Hayner, Ellen Murdoch, and Glen Reichelderfer. We had visual help from Lindy Anderson and Barry Sherbeck. So many people here were resources for historical information, including Carol Quintana, Elaine and Ken Kosier, John Rafoth, and many more. The staff at CPC was so supportive of this whole effort, Derek Handley did a masterful job of getting information out along with so many other tasks. The greeters, ushers and kitchen crew did a lot along the way. And most of all, your generosity with our Energizing Mission campaign, support for the concert, and commitment to the future of this congregation made it all so worthwhile.
On to the next 175!
Phil Haslanger
Energizing Mission campaign gives out first grants
Our Energizing Mission capital campaign devoted one-third of the $1.5 million total to supporting Christ Presbyterian’s mission partners over the next three years. The first three grants totalling $175,000 (since this is our 175th year) were presented at the anniversary potluck on Saturday night by Jerry VanKirk.
The photos show Jerry giving longtime Fairhaven supporter Marian Ehernberg a symbolic check for $25,000 to help with the work at the school in Alexandria, Egypt; then he presented a check for $20,000 to support outreach plans by our youth to our youth ministry intern, Tiana Sullivan, and several young people; and finally, he presented a check for $130,000 for the Community Immigration Law Center to Grant Sovern, the director, who thanked CPC not only for the much-needed donation but for helping CILC start in 2009 with Jean-René Watchou and sustaining it through the past 15 years as the need for its services has grown dramatically.