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How to Promote |
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| Plan Now |
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Set
dates. Ask your session to set dates to receive
the offering. Most congregations choose Palm Sunday (March
16) and/or Easter Sunday (March 23), but the session can
choose any dates. The session should also set a goal, preferably
an ambitious one. See the Challenge
section on this page. |
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Gather
a strong committee. Ask members of your mission,
worship, stewardship, and Christian education committees
to work with you to plan a celebration that integrates all
aspects of congregational life. |
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Locate
your resources. Find the shipment of materials
that came in December or early January. By the end of
January, make sure that you received enough of everything
you will use, and order more if necessary. If you didn’t
get all you need, note what extra materials you had to
order so that next year when you receive the confirmation
letter for your standing order, you’ll know how
to correct it. To order additional materials, call PDS
at (800) 524-2612. Other resources are listed on the on
the order form.
Presbyterian
Hunger Program
Self-Development
of People
Presbyterian
Disaster Assistance |
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| 4. |
Plan displays,
worship, special events, and Christian education.Be
sure to assign responsibility for minutes for mission
and for the follow-through on each of the other areas. |
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| 5. |
Plan how best
to use the new PowerPoint, Share What You
Have, and other elements of the Tool Kit CD:
PowerPoint
If your congregation projects messages on a screen for
greater visibility, consider using this cluster of electronic
resources related to One Great Hour of Sharing that you
received in your shipment. One is simply a visual frame
using OGHS artwork and graphics that leaves room for your
messages and permits you to vary your presentation during
Lent while raising awareness of the offering. Another
offers a brief minute for mission that quickly interprets
the history, mission, and distribution of the offering.
A third helps explore the new OGHS logo and tagline, “Sharing
Resources, Changing Lives.” All three can be used
with or without music and narration, and a script is provided
for those who want to accompany the minute for mission
visuals with their own presentation.
Downloadable Resources
Additionally, a variety of downloadable
art and text resources are available to give you easier
access to those elements for use in your own communications
with members. |
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| Challenge
Your Congregation |
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1.
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Choose
a goal. Focusing on a goal has clearly made a significant
difference for congregations that have tried it. This year
be ambitious—set a goal 15–20 percent higher
than you have reached in the past. |
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2.
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Share
that goal with the congregation. Use your congregational
mailings, displays, and announcements during worship to
keep this challenge before the congregation. |
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3.
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Explain
the reasons for the challenge. Need is increasing.
Both within the United States and throughout the world,
the gap between those who have enough and those who don’t
continues to widen. Increased costs of living mean that
this year’s dollar simply can’t do as much work
as last year’s. |
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4.
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Show the increasing need, as well as the
impact an individual gift can have. Insert facts and graphics
from the Reproducible Resources booklet in newsletters or
other written congregational communications, or lift them
up in minutes for mission. To make them more effective,
relate the size of a gift with what it might purchase in
members’ own lives—a tank of gas, a fast-food
dinner for the family, an evening at the movies, a single
night’s stay at a hotel when traveling, and so forth.
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5.
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Show
your progress toward the goal. For ways to help
your congregation focus on how much more you need to meet
your goal, call your presbytery’s hunger action enabler
or Mission Interpretation in Louisville. |
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6.
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On
behalf of those currently in need, thank the congregation
for reaching its goal. If the congregation has
not yet met its goal, remind members that any support for
One Great Hour of Sharing throughout the year will also
help meet it. |
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| Visibility |
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Create an eye-catching
display in a prominent place. Start with the posters,
fish banks, and thank-you letters. You may have some differently
colored fish banks from previous years. If the church has
a particular connection with a specific One Great Hour of
Sharing project, include photos in the display. |
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Place thank-you letters
from recipients of past offerings in different places around
the church. Check the Reproducible Resources booklet
or copy Thank You Letters
to paste into your own documents. Be sure members know they
are being thanked for their gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing. |
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Discover
the local impact of One Great Hour of Sharing on both your
community and your congregation. Check the project
listings that show what the three OGHS programs have
done in your community. Highlight those ministries in your
displays, newsletters, and minutes for mission. |
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Plan special congregational
events. A potluck meal or a mission fair can highlight
the ministries supported through One Great Hour of Sharing.
This is a good time for an intergenerational exploration
of the new map-and-stamp resource, Sharing Resources,
Changing Lives. Use the free place mats for added impact. |
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Plan church school
activities related to the offerings for all ages. Distribute
the coin boxes and copies of the Sharing Calendar to all
children in church school. The Children’s Activity
Resource, Gracie and the Two-Legged Fish, continues
the story about Gracie, the OGHS fish, and includes questions
to help children of different ages explore the story. Like
the Gracie story, the youth resource, Sharing Resources,
Changing Lives, explores what it means to share. Although
designed for youth, it can also be used with adults or intergenerationally. |
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6. |
Consider creating your own Gracie.
The Sunday school classes that suggested the name Gracie
for the fish each won a plush version of Gracie. See the
Web site for a pattern (or to order a kit) you can use to
create your own stuffed Gracie. |
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Send a letter from
the pastor to your congregation. A mailing in late
January will include a sample
letter. Surveys confirm that sending such a letter along
with an offering envelope does make a significant difference
in your congregation’s giving. See the the Reproducible
Resources booklet or the downloadable
art page for visual impact. |
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Worship
Try to integrate all of the following
elements and activities into your service as part of the
worship process, rather than treating them as add-ons, to
emphasize the central role our witness in the world plays
in our own discipleship. |
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1.
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Use the liturgical materials
provided. Several of these appear on pages 3–5
of the Reproducible Resources booklet. These and others
are available on the Worship Resource
page or by calling Mission Education and Promotion at
(888) 728-7228, ext. 5168 or 5183. Feel free to adapt
them.
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2.
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Present
minutes for mission each Sunday. Five are also
provided on pages 5–9 of the Reproducible Resources
booklet, in coordination with the one reproducible and four
preprinted bulletin inserts. Individuals giving the minutes
for mission should feel free to use their own words and
experiences. |
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3.
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Use
a skit, children’s sermon, or dramatic monologue during
worship. Tool
Kit CD, or call Mission Interpretation (888) 728-7228,
ext. 5168 or 5183. |
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4.
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Focus on the offering in the sermon.
It’s important in interpreting this offering to
place it in the context of our calling to witness to God’s
love by ministering to God’s people.
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5.
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Dedicate
the congregation’s gifts. Each Sunday, dedicate
the gifts to the service and glory of God and tell the members
of the congregation how much they have given to those ministries.
Consider a special dedication for children’s coin
boxes. |
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| Commitment |
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1.
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Discover
new opportunities for involvement. Giving follows
commitment. Individuals may wish to give their time and
talents to help a One Great Hour of Sharing ministry in
your community. Instead of giving up something for Lent,
invite individuals and families to pick up a ministry
for Lent—helping in a soup kitchen or homeless shelter,
delivering meals on wheels, or similar activities. Even
if the ministry isn’t specifically funded by One
Great Hour of Sharing, it will help people become aware
of the needs of our sisters and brothers and some of the
ways we can reach out to them.
To find out more about possibilities for involvement,
contact Presbyterian
Disaster Assistance at (888) 728-7228, x5797, the
Presbyterian
Hunger Program at x5832, Self-Development
of People at x5783.
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2.
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Involve
children and youth in the promotion. Consider asking
the children to perform a skit. Instead of inserting the
bulletin inserts in the bulletins, ask children and youth
to hand them to people as they enter the sanctuary. Consider
“commissioning” the coin boxes at the beginning
of Lent and dedicating them during worship on one of the
Sundays you receive the offering. Consult with your Christian
educators on other ways to weave the children’s and
youth activities into the worship experience. |
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3.
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Send
in your congregation’s offering. Please
send all gifts through your normal giving channels, including
your presbytery’s receiving site. If this is impractical,
please send the gifts to:
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Church Remittance Processing
P.O. Box 643678
Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3678
Indicate One Great Hour of Sharing on the memo line.
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4.
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Complete
and send in the survey in the Leader's guide. Please
take a few minutes to complete the form. Include any ideas
that worked for your congregation in promoting the offering
so we can share them with others. |
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