UPDATE on Partners:
Chicago Office
congregations in one. “People who came on Sunday
were not really aware of the people who came on
Wednesday,” explains longtime congregation
member Paul Geenen.
By far, the church’s biggest initiative is the “Bread
of Healing Empowerment Ministry” (BOHEM). This
signature social program draws 200-300 people to
the church’s fellowship hall every Wednesday night
for a hot meal, optional Bible study, drug and alcohol
support groups, and access to a food pantry. Overall,
the ministry is characterized by a comprehensive
and holistic approach that not only offers economic,
psychological, and spiritual support but also gives the
less fortunate the tools to empower themselves.
Katherine Anderson, Amy Schachman, and Emily Gigerich (l. to
r.) are three of the summer interns in the Chicago Office. They
and Duane Hagerty (not pictured) will be working on Partners’
Making Homes for the Arts in Sacred Places program.
New Dollars/New Partners Success Story
In 2009, Cross Lutheran Church in Milwaukee,
WI, went through a New Dollars/New Partners for
Your Sacred Place training session led by the staff
of the Chicago Office, but held in Milwaukee. The
congregation hosted all of the participants for
the final module in January 2011. The training
encouraged Cross Lutheran to re-examine its
ministries, and to expand and extend its long
tradition of hospitality. This, in turn, prompted
the church to begin a capital campaign for over $2
million to renovate its kitchen and fellowship hall,
and construct an addition that will help expand its
social service programs. With the aid of New Dollars/
New Partners, the church has been able to outline its
need and its goals to donors and funders.
For many years, Cross Lutheran served two very
different communities: the crowd of about 165
that filled the sanctuary every Sunday for worship,
and the roughly 300 people that used the church’s
various social services throughout the week.
Since there was little, if any, contact between the
different populations, the church was actually two
BOHEM has been so effective and popular that there
was simply not enough room in the fellowship hall to
serve the enormous crowds that gathered on a weekly
basis. The congregation knew it needed to undertake
a large-scale building initiative to address the need
for more space and better facilities.
The church leaders realized that they had little
experience in running a capital campaign, and so
decided to participate in the New Dollars/New Partners
training. According to Geenen, they “benefited
greatly from having someone from the outside”
explain what needed to be done. Tom Jackson,
another congregation member who participated
in the training, noted that it “was most helpful in
putting together case statements and the public
value of our ministries.” The team was able to make
the case for their church as a community asset in
empirical terms. For example, over 600 volunteer
hours per month were devoted to the church’s
various service programs. This figure and others were
a major source of enthusiasm for the congregation
as they conveyed the importance of the weekday
ministries to the Sunday worshippers and inspired
many to become more involved.
With new skills and an infectious enthusiasm, the
capital campaign team set to work. The congregation
Sacred Places • Summer 2011 • 10