Special Offerings, and Neighbors in Need

At McFarland UCC, we try to present many different ways to give in support of the church's mission.  We know that not every opportunity will tug at every person's heart strings.  We trust you to assess your available resources and the ways in which God tugs at your heart, when you choose which opportunities to support.  Here's an overview of some of the possibilities:

• Our General Fund supports our local ministry, including property, paid staff, and our own ministries. When you put a check in the offering baskets, use online banking to send a gift to church, or use our secure online giving page, any gift you don't designate for a special purpose goes to this fund.  It's our most flexible funding source 
• We have occasional special offerings and fundraisers for local and world ministries that this church has a connection to - such as the McFarland Community Food Pantry, Domestic Abuse Intervention Services, AIDS Network, Haiti Allies, and UNICEF.  
• An Endowment Fund focuses on outreach and education, allowing us to give scholarships and support the education of future Christian leaders, as well as responding to outreach proposals from the congregation that might require a little more financial backing.
• Pastor's Assistance Fund is a small fund that allows the pastor to respond to urgent, confidential human needs, like groceries, gas, and emergency housing.  
• A variety of other funds also exist for in-church use:  music, youth activities, and building & equipment, for example.  

In addition to the opportunities above, we also support the work of the wider church.  McFarland UCC is proud to be a "5 for 5" congregation in the UCC!  That means we contribute to Our Church's Wider Mission (which helps sustain the ministries of our association, conference, and national resource staff), as well as four special offerings each year:

• One Great Hour of Sharing (ministries of compassion & disaster recovery around the world)
  
• Strengthen the Church (supporting new UCC churches and renewing churches like ours!)
  
• Neighbors in Need (ministries of justice & compassion in the US)
  
• The Christmas Fund (pension supplements for retired clergy, spouses, and Christian educators)
  

We are currently accepting gifts toward the Neighbors in Need (NIN) offering.   Here's what NIN does:

The Neighbors in Need offering, which we will receive in November, supports the UCC's ministries of justice and compassion throughout the United States. Two-thirds of the offering is used by the UCC's Justice and Witness Ministries  to fund a wide array of local and national justice initiatives, advocacy efforts, and direct service projects. Through UCCTakeAction.org, our national Justice and Witness Ministries office offers resources, news updates, and action alerts on broad spectrum of justice issues. Working with members of the UCC Justice and Peace Action Network [a network of thousands of UCC justice and peace advocates], Justice and Witness continues its strong policy advocacy work on issues such as the federal budget, voting rights, immigration, health care, hate crimes, civil liberties, and environmental justice. Neighbors in Need also supports our American Indian neighbors in the UCC. One-third of the offering supports the UCC’s Council for American Indian Ministries [CAIM]. Historically, forebears of the UCC established churches and worked with Lakota, Dakota, Nakota, Mandan, Hidatsa, Arickara, and Hocak in North and South Dakota, Wisconsin, and northern Nebraska. Today there are 20 UCC congregations on reservations and one urban, multi-tribal UCC congregation in Minneapolis, Minnesota. These churches and their pastors are supported by CAIM. CAIM is also an invaluable resource for more than 1,000 individuals from dozens of other tribes and nations who are members of other UCC congregations in the U.S.

We know you have many options for how to allocate your giving.  If this one speaks to your heart, please use the small envelopes provided at church, or mark your gift with the memo "NIN".