Last week I submitted my first draft of chapter 5! This is the last chapter of my dissertation. I have already received feedback from the chairman of my dissertation committee and he has asked that I make a few revisions. Once I do that, the entire dissertation will go to the rest of the committee for either further revisions or final approval. Once final approval is given, a dissertation defense date will be scheduled. When I defend the dissertation successfully (by God's grace), I will be completely finished! I don't care if anyone will call me "Doctor" after that. I just want to be "done"! :)
Please know that I am extremely grateful to God for this milestone and to you as a Calvary leader for your prayerful support and encouragement. I know I couldn't have done it without God. I am also aware that I couldn't have done it without the support of the Calvary staff, personnel committee, deacons, leaders and congregation. Please continue to pray for me in these final stage of revisions and defense. I will keep you posted.
During these last couple of weeks, we have kicked off our fall semester here at Calvary. That's always an exciting time in the life of our church. Our EQUIP, Remedy, ICC, Grove, WIT and choir programs are up and running with adults, students and children involved at all levels. Additionally, we are hosting the Perspectives course on our campus. This course enriches what we are doing in our discipleship and leadership development strategy here at Calvary (although it is not a Calvary program and it is not limited to Calvary people). I will write some separate posts regarding the EQUIP course that I'm leading and the Perspectives class (which I am also taking this semester) this week. Additionally, I will share a post with you regarding a concert to be presented by Benjamin Aguirre and his family.
Allow me to also share with you that the Music & Worship Study committee, chaired by Judy Prater has finalized their report and recommendation. They have presented this recommendation to the personnel committee and the personnel committee is working to prepare the profile and job description that will allow a search committee to do its work. We will keep you posted on this.
As a final note, I report to you that we had extraordinary budget giving this summer. At the same time we continued to monitor our expenses closely. In spite of the fact that the summer is usually a low-giving high-expense period of the year, we functioned in the black (spent less than what came in) each month of the summer (June, July and August). We may not meet our current budget by the end of this year but I feel very optimistic about finishing the year in the black. In fact, we may be there by mid-fall. We will live within our means. We will learn to work with less but we will do what God has called us to do. I am so grateful for a congregation that is giving generously and for a staff that is serving unselfishly. We give God the glory for all that. Below is a chart that shows a giving comparison by month between 2009 and 2013. You will see that we defied the usual summer slump this past summer. (We also defied the usual summer slump in terms of worship attendance. Notice the chart that shows attendance 2007--2013 at the very bottom).
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