We here in San Jose do not hear often enough about their amazing ministry, because their services are centered more in Sacramento, San Francisco and Oakland. Here is a brief overview:

• Permanent Supportive Housing: Previously homeless families and individuals with disabilities receive ongoing services to maintain life stability.
• Money Management for Housing Stability: LSS works to prevent chronic homelessness among low-income residents of San Francisco with mental and physical disabilities.
• Transitional and Supported Housing for former foster and transition age youth: Former foster youth have no place to go when they turn 18. LSS provides the support and love they need to become self-sufficient adults.
• Transitional Housing and Support for Homeless Women and Children Serving formerly homeless women in recovery from substance abuse, survivors of domestic violence, and women and children in recovery from abuse.
• Community Services: Supportive services for vulnerable communities when needs are identified.
• Disaster Response and Relief: Assist those whose lives have been disrupted by disasters (Northern California Affiliate for Lutheran Disaster Response; Disaster Preparedness Planning Services; Hurricane Katrina Recovery Mission; South Lake Tahoe/Angora Fire Relief; Fernley Flooding Relief; Santa Cruz/Summit Fire Relief)

How you can help: You can support Lutheran Social Services through your contribution to February’s 2nd Mile Giving Plan.

To everyone who has encouraged a hesitant visitor to come on in through those intimidating front doors: THANK YOU!

To everyone who has helped a baffled visitor find the restrooms: THANK YOU!

To everyone who has reassured a visitor that it's ok to go into the sanctuary, even when the doors are closed and there's a crowd in the narthex: THANK YOU!

To everyone who has helped a visitor navigate from the sanctuary to the great hall for coffee: THANK YOU!

To everyone who has taken a moment to find out what's happening in a vistor's life, even when it meant missing last week's news from an old friend: THANK YOU!

To all the visitors who have forgiven us when we failed to extend those basic courtesies: THANK YOU!

This has been a busy and expensive year for the upkeep of our facility. The long-overdue replacement of the sanctuary furnace has happened. Though this should bring substantial long-term savings in our heating expenses, the cost of the furnace and installation came to $6100. As anyone could guess from the buckets in the hallway and narthex this spring, skylight and roof repairs were also needed, coming to $3700. Then there are the sacristy repairs, the bathroom remodel, and, about fifty years overdue, the painting of the sound room, coming to about $1101, $3938, and $486 respectively. Then there are the surprises. The Great Hall hot water heater sprang a leak, requiring emergency replacement at a cost of $870. An unsafe electrical panel had to be replaced at a cost of about $2000. We recently received notice from the city that we will be required to take care of some sidewalk work, which, when combined with work done near the parsonage earlier this year, will total roughly $6,000. For the most part, these are the kind of headaches every homeowner knows, especially when the home is over a half-century old. Then there are those cases where we should have known better, where we were too optimistic in our budgeting. Extrapolating from our "Outside Janitorial" expenses so far this year, that line item may be about $1,300 over budget by the end of the year. Likewise, our telephone rates (we have to pay "business" rates, which are much higher than "residential" rates) were under-budgeted, so the projection is that the "Telecommunications" facilities line item will be about $570 over budget by the end of the year. Taken together, these items come to a little over $26,000, seriously stretching our financial resources. (Most of our funds bear donor restrictions preventing us from using them to cover these expenses.) The good news is that the congregation of Christ the Good Shepherd has always responded faithfully, even in tight economic times, to make sure that our facility continues to serve our entire community. The "Small Church, Big Building, Generous Hearts" fundraising campaign will run through October, with a goal of $26,000. Funds raised in this campaign will be used to offset the expenses described above, and any excess will go to replenish the now-depleted "Asset Replacement and Major Maintenance Reserve Account" of our congregation's reserve fund. Even if your financial situation doesn't permit a special gift at this time, take the time to pray for our congregation, that we might be good stewards of these resources.