Fantastic Harvest Start!

It is with such pleasure that I write this Harvest update. St. Luke’s parish family can be so proud of itself! The diligence, enthusiasm and dedication to task that is being demonstrated by each person as they embrace their role in this Harvest outreach is a pure delight to witness and be included. As of this writing, we have had three most excellent evenings of Harvest calling and praying. Daily we track things such as completed calls – when we connect and speak to an actual person; how many of the people we speak to already go to church or not; would they like to visit; and would they like us to pray for them. For the two hour commitment each night, these are the results so far (averaged numbers): · 220 calls made nightly by the 4-5 callers who are calling 70 completed calls per night 20 prayer requests received per night 4 to 9 prayer team volunteers each night, praying in the church And like these numbers, which are true to the statistics provided by Harvest, about 60% of the people we speak to say they already go to church – which is good news for the Kingdom! The really exciting piece is: whether or not our neighbors already go to church, they are requesting our prayers and we are in dialogue with them about shared daily activities. One woman’s son is taking organ lessons, so she was very interested in our beautiful Aeolian Skinner organ; her interest was piqued by our music program. We made sure that she was invited to the next Michaelsen Arts Series concert on Sunday evening April 3. Another person knew the parishioner who called her! They had a good chat about Harvest and what St. Luke’s is doing. Another caller discovered that a family’s son went to a local school and knew one of our parishioners - his teacher! These things are such positive examples of bridge building out from our hearts to the near-by community. From the conversations I have had with those working each evening and many in the parish, there seems to be large agreement that Harvest is providing us the framework by which we are taking action to answer many of our own fervent prayers about how to share the Good News of the saving power and love of Jesus Christ and to build up His Kingdom, and St. Luke’s. I invite you to speak with any of the Harvest call and prayer team volunteers - they will tell you, it is a very moving, humbling and thrilling experience to be involved! Everything our parish has done together to this point is making this such a positive experience. Thank you all for your contributions to this fantastic start! Please keep Harvest at the top of your prayer list! God Bless! Anne Lucas/ Harvest Coordinator