Chairman:            Jim Stroh            jim@gloriadeitomah.com

Members:

Greetings to the members of Gloria Dei.

 For those of you who may not know me and or know what I do here at Gloria Dei my name is James E Stroh II. I am a member of Gloria Dei’s council and head up the Forward Planning committee. It is to this fact that I now address you. We are nearing the end of the year and it is time to let you all in on a bit of what the Forward Planning committee is thinking.

 The first thing I would like to tell you, is that at the beginning of this year the Forward Planning committee and the Evangelism committee, headed up by Chris Zindorf, joined forces in an effort to better utilize our resources by practicing the old adage “More heads are better than one.”

 From this combination I can tell you that a great amount of time has been used to prepare and very shortly introduce to you a new web sight on the internet for Gloria Dei. Chris is the head of this direction and is much better suited to answer any questions you may have. I can tell you, however, that it will be more interactive with those of you who may wish to use it, and if all goes as planned will be updated by the Pastors and others of Gloria Dei on a regular basis so you will have another resource to better keep yourselves informed of what is happening here at church.

 Outside of some long range ideas, the main direction and news that the Forward Planning committee would like to share with you is that of having a new church directory done for Gloria Dei this next summer of 2006. We are looking to have the pictures taken early enough in the year so that they may be used for the holidays, yet late enough to accommodate for those families who may have members away for different reasons such as school. The details are now in the early planning stages as to date and time, but doing this has been approved by the council. I will keep you informed in future letters within the church’s monthly news letter and in the mean time if you have any questions please feel free to ask me.

 The Forward Planning committee is one of those committees that you may not hear of often or hear from often; still, I assure you, all ideas are being considered. If you have ideas as to possible things we on the Forward Planning committee might research pass those onto me. Remember, every success started with an idea. Gloria Dei’s new worship space did and because of the faithful past you and I now reap what they sowed. Together we can make a difference.

 As we all look to our future here at Gloria Dei I ask that you join me in giving God thanks for the opportunity to serve Him.  I ask also, that together we ask God to guide us, for His word says in Proverbs 16:3 “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.” May all that we plan, and commit to the Lord, succeed.

 It has been a great honor for me to serve on your council and on the Forward Planning committee. I thank you all for this.

                                      Last Updated  03/06/2008