News & Notes...
Have you considered Grace Church in your estate planning? A bequest of any size to the endowment fund will help provide income to your church well into the future. Income from the endowment fund is divided 2/3 to the ministries and operations budget, 1/3 to the benevolence budget. Pastor Myers can provide additional information. You can contact him at 677-3013 or email [email protected].
|
Grace Church Takes Steps Toward Greater Security
We’ve all heard the stories of assaults on houses of worship: churches, synagogues, mosques. In response, the Board of Trustees has been working to identify risk at our church building and take steps toward increased safety for all. At the May 16 Administrative Council meeting several steps were reported and approved for implementation. The Board and Council want all our members and friends to be familiar with these new steps. The first vulnerability that was identified by both the PA State Police and a security representative from Campus Security Solutions is the number of doors in our church building. Their recommendation was to:
The Admin. Council heard these recommendations and acted to make them into policy. Beginning June 2 (the first Sunday of the Summer schedule) only two doors will be opened on Sunday mornings: the ramp door and the “sanctuary” doors on First St. (the double doors that enter the original building). They will be opened before Sunday School. These doors will be remain open until ten minutes after the worship service begins at 10:00AM. All other doors will remain locked. After the service has begun, those arriving late will be admitted at the ramp door only. An attendant will be stationed there for that purpose. Both the Board and Council recognize that these steps may be inconvenient and will take some time to get used to. We hope everyone will recognize that these steps are intended to provide greater safety for all who gather here for study, worship and service. Additionally, new door knobs have been installed on all the Sunday school rooms. They allow classes where children and youth are meeting to be locked from inside the room. This will prevent an intruder from gaining access to these rooms. These also have lever handles and are Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant. More steps are in development. We hope to recruit and train a Security Team, which will be able to increase the church’s safety even further. If you would be interested in helping with such a team, please contact the church at 677-3013, or [email protected] or complete an I Wish card on Sunday morning. Circle “S” for Security and include your name and contact information. The Trustees will be in touch with you. Thank you for your understanding, your patience and support. |