2006-2008 Three-year Covenant for LYONS

DATE: January 20, 2005

To the congregational councils of:

Ballard First Lutheran

Bethany Lutheran

Calvary Lutheran

Crown Lutheran

Denny Park Lutheran

Luther Memorial

Our Redeemer’s Lutheran

Phinney Ridge Lutheran

Queen Anne Lutheran

St John United Lutheran

SUBJECT: LYONS (Lutheran Youth Of North Seattle)

Cooperative youth program three year covenant.

We are in our last year of the three year LYONS agreement of ten churches working together to provide a youth program for the youth in your congregations and for youth outside those walls. It has been an interesting, exciting, growing time for LYONS as we worked to provide a Christ-centered community of Worship, Witness, Service, Education and Fun. We hope LYONS has helped to strengthen ministry to young people in your congregations and neighborhoods during these last years of partnership.

It is our desire to continue this journey in ministry. We once again seek your partnership and support for the next three years. This document will tell you what we’ve seen and learned in the last three years, along with our strategies and hopes for the future. We ask each congregation to study it and prayerfully consider approving this contract. This renewed commitment would be from January 1, 2006 through December 31, 2008 whereupon we would ask you to consider renewing your support and partnership.

What have we seen in this three year period?

Almost everything about our program has grown! We added staff to meet the needs of this growing organization. Two directors provide program and leadership for LYONS, and they are supported by a part time office administrator and financial administrator. Youth from every congregation have attended our events, so that we see just over sixty percent of the potential youth on our mailing lists. That’s about forty percent better than most youth programs, and most church programs in general! Furthermore, our “guest list” has more than doubled in this time, showing that youth are inviting their friends in greater numbers.

Our volunteer support has grown as well. Just this year we put in place a “core volunteer group” consisting of at least one adult assigned to each class year in our group. These great people meet on a regular basis to foster faith growth in themselves and to learn how to be great volunteers. Beyond that, we have many other adults who participate at some level, and we are thankful for all the adult faith mentors LYONS has been able to put in the lives of young people.

We have also grown in our organization and communications, developing a new logo and more consistent ways of getting the word out about LYONS. Our website, newsletter and email reminders keep people updated about coming events. You assist us by publishing our events and information in your bulletins, newsletters and the displays we have put in each congregation. Our directors enjoy worshipping in each congregation and assisting in worship wherever we can to both make our presence known and to provide resources for you.

Beyond numbers and organization, we see how each year we grow into our mission statement, which asks us to be committed to serving and welcoming youth in a Christ-centered community of Worship, Witness, Service, Education and Fun. Each year, we look at our mission statement, and the needs of the current youth and congregations, and set goals based on those two things. It may always be true that youth have fun, but each year, we also see youth growing in their desire to worship together, to learn about things together, to serve together, and to share and articulate their faith with each other and with their friends. This has been exciting to witness.

During our second year, we had the unfortunate event of losing one of the seven churches that originally signed a three year commitment to LYONS. This caused financial problems, as we depend on each congregation’s faithful contributions to meet our own budget. Thanks to an unexpected generous gift, we were able to make up the difference this gap left. In the fall of 2004, we welcomed Bethany Lutheran into LYONS, which fills the spot left by Magnolia Lutheran and brings us back to ten congregations sharing in this cooperative ministry.

Plan for the Future

In thinking about the future, each church provided us with statistics about the youth coming up. It looks like some of you will have more young people, and some of you have numbers that drop down a little.  But the end result looks about the same: The number of youth feeding into our program remains about the same for the next three years. As you know, an active youth program will help keep those youth in your churches, so we hope you will consider this ministry an important part of your mission.

We will continue to address the needs of LYONS youth and friends through the lens of our mission statement, to provide a Christ-centered community of Worship, Witness, Service, Education and Fun.

We will continue this with the same strategies that have been successful in the past:

            Building relationships

            Engaging in service opportunities

            Participating in churchwide, regional, and synodical youth events

            Hosting events that challenge youth in faith life

            Worshipping together

            Hosting events that are inter-congregational and inter-generational

            Involvement in schools and neighborhoods

            Hosting consistent activities

            Communicating consistently with churches and young people

            Providing leadership in congregations as needed

            Putting adult faith mentors into kids’ lives

Keeping in touch with LYONS graduates and providing occasional fellowship opportunities for LYONS alumni.

Each summer we set annual goals for the year based on what we see the current needs are, and we will continue to do this through the length of this covenant.

LYONS Operations

Currently, we provide weekly events for both middle school and high school youth with a director in charge of each group, switching between events so both directors have contact with all the youth. The volunteers for each group remain the same each week throughout the year.

Each month for both groups, there is an education event, a service event, a worship experience, and a fun event.

Leadership Team: Each year we request applications from our youth for the Leadership team. Their task is to give us feedback on our events and the group in general, and to be welcoming to all youth that come through our doors. They also make phone calls to youth to encourage them to come, and have leadership roles at the events.

Board of Directors: The governing board for Lutheran Youth Of North Seattle is open to one adult from each congregation, for a total of ten members. This board meets monthly to:

            Conduct the “month to month” business of LYONS

            Serve as personnel committee for the LYONS staff

            Prepare yearly budgets

            Elect officers to be the leadership of the Executive Board

            Communicate with LYONS congregations

Each board member would serve for two years and can serve “back to back” terms. After serving two consecutive two-year terms, a board member is not eligible for another term for another two years. Any kind of new board configuration will have to be changed in the By-Laws of LYONS.

Financial Support

We have done our best to project our basic budget expenses and income for the next three years to give congregations an idea of their commitment level. It is impossible to come up with exact figures, but our projected three-year budget is based on:

• A general inflation rate (3%) per year for most of our current ministry and administrative expenses, based on this year’s disbursements.
• Payroll projections for 2006, 2007, 2008. It should be noted that these projections are based on the board’s plan to modify the compensation structure for the directors to more closely reflect the Northwest Synod compensation guidelines. This will be done in a “ramp up” approach over five years to soften the increase in cost, with full compliance projected in 2010.

Things as simple as the change in the price of oil, insurance costs, or computer updates can change these numbers, but we will, as we have in the past, do our best to keep the bottom line for our congregations the same as what is detailed in these reports.

Our disbursements in 2005: (the last year of the initial three year plan) $158,637.54

2006 disbursements: $165,500.20 (congregational support: $132,535)

2007 disbursements: $173,478.43 (congregational support: $135,635)

2008 disbursements: $186,889.87 (congregational support: $142,635)

(See rough detail of budgetary disbursements at the end of this document.)

To meet these projected disbursements, we anticipate a need to increase our fundraising and to increase, over time, individual gifts to LYONS so that the whole amount of our increased expenses is not as taxing to our supporting, partnering congregations.

It is difficult for us to make assumptions about what each congregation can afford, but we have spent some time trying to figure out how to be most equitable in our approach to this matter. As in the past, each church is an equal member of LYONS, but pays at different rates according to their ability. In attempting to figure this out, we collected each churches’ current budget and figured out what percentage of each budget was going to LYONS. We also have first-hand knowledge of some of the churches’ situations, and those things together lead us to ask for the following amounts over the next three years. In the first column, you can see what you are currently being asked to give, followed by our request of you for the next three years:

Congregation	2006	2007	2008	Current Year
Ballard First Lutheran	$27,000	$27,000	$28,000	$26,000
Bethany Lutheran	$8,300	$9,000	$10,000	$7,975
Calvary Lutheran	$7,975	$7,975	$7,975	$7,975
Crown Lutheran	$7,975	$7,975	$7,975	$7,975
Denny Park Lutheran	$3,000	$4,000	$5,000	$2,150
Luther Memorial	$7,685	$7,685	$7,685	$7,685
Our Redeemers	$8,300	$9,000	$10,000	$8,120
Phinney Ridge Lutheran	$27,000	$27,000	$28,000	$26,000
Queen Anne Lutheran	$27,000	$27,000	$28,000	$26,000
St. John United	$8,300	$9,000	$10,000	$8,120
Total Support	$132,535	$135,635	$142,635	$128,000

With this giving, we are still below meeting our anticipated budget, but put it before you with faith that we can continue the work of LYONS with your commitment.

We hope that being a partner with LYONS has been an asset to your congregation, and that you continue to see it as an asset, and as a partnership ministry. Please prayerfully consider making a covenant with LYONS to continue this ministry for the next three years!

Budget projections:

Income	2006	2007	2008	current
Major gifts	$20,000	$20,000	$19,000	$19,000
Ind. Gifts	$3,000	$4,000	$10,000	$12,400
Fundraising	$11,000	$13,000	$15,000	$9,700
Congregational sup.	$132,535	$135,635	$142635	$128,000
Total receipts	$166,535	$172,635	$186,635