PENTECOST SUNDAY, MAY 31
Pentecost is significant in both the Old and New Testaments. “Pentecost” is actually the Greek name for a festival known in the Old Testament as the Feast of Weeks
(Leviticus 23:15; Deuteronomy 16:9).
The Greek word means “fifty” and refers to the fifty days that have elapsed since Easter (Acts 2:1-21).
It is traditional to wear red this day.
Dear Members and Friends of HTLC,
A few updates to pass along to you:
In Christ,
Pastor Fischer
In Christ,
Pastor Fischer
Dear HTLC Members and Friends of the Congregation,
Here are a few updates on church members and a few thoughts in preparation for Sunday’s message:
Dear Members and Friends of HTLC,
Just a reminder that there is still time to send in your information to Pat. Normally we receive a pretty good response but with no worship services on Sunday, when most folks turn this in, not many requests have been returned this year.
In Christ,
Pastor Fischer
MOTHER’S DAY is Sunday, May 10th. A special offering, sponsored by WELCA, is being received and then given to deserving female students at the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary. If you would like to make a donation In Memory Of or In Honor Of your mother, please fill out the form below and mail, or call the church office with your information. The names will be listed in Sunday’s bulletin and June’s Messenger. The deadline to do this is Thursday at 12:00 noon of this week.
In Memory of______________________________________________________________
Honor of_________________________________________________________________
Other (To the Glory of God)_________________________________________________
Given by___________________________________________________________________
If you you want to print out this and mail it in, just click on the link below to download a word document you can print
An Update on Masks
The Community Mask Challenge was for 8000 masks, and that goal has been reached. If you are on facebook, they have a facebook group (AnMed Health Community Mask Challenge). Check it out! According to this page, they are still accepting masks but will be sharing them with other first responders/community groups that need masks. So if you have completed masks, you can either leave them in the box in the room off of the narthex (Nancy Korn will pick them up and deliver them) or you can deliver them yourself, either to AnMed or to someplace else that might need masks.
Fabric to make more masks is located in the room off of the Narthex. There is a box for completed masks there as well. See Nancy Korn for more details.
Online Bible Study
Each Sunday evening we continue a Bible study using the “Slaying the Giants in Your Life,” a 12 lesson DVD series, by Dr. David Jeremiah from 6:00 – 7:30 PM. The “Giants” Dr. Jeremiah provides Biblical guidance for, include: fear, discouragement, loneliness, worry, guilt, temptation, anger, resentment, doubt, procrastination, failure, and jealousy. The format for the study will be a DVD lesson from Dr. Jeremiah followed by comments and discussion.
Participants may be a part of the Bible study using their computers, tablets or their cell phones. If none of these are available, a person can call in on their telephone though they will not be able to see the video portion. If you are unable to participate in real-time, we are hoping to provide access to the video recordings. We will be using a video conferencing platform called Zoom which is free and easy to use! Though certainly not required to participate, there is also a study guide available for the series from https://www.davidjeremiah.org/ .
If you know how to go online you can participate in the video portion of the lesson. It is not difficult and we will assist you in getting started! You will need to contact Jane at janecahaly@gmail.com or call her at 864-314-2561 if you are interested in staying in touch with other church members by participating in this wonderful series which is so appropriate for our times!
Jane Potter, Shirley Ebert, Roz Eckardt, Cherie Brown, Bobbi Metz, Kim Hill, and Nancy Korn currently work on quilts for Lutheran World Relief. There have been 26 more quilts made that will the total number of quilts made by the Holy Trinity Quilters to 398.
The 26 quilts that we dedicated last March 2019 were shipped to Tanzania in September. LWR shipped 333,405 quilts worldwide. Quilts are the most requested item by LWR partner agencies.
If you would like to make a donation to cover the cost of shipping the quilts to Maryland (approximately $6 per quilt) currently, please send your check to the church office and designate it for quilt shipping.
You may also donate to the Lutheran World Relief Quilt and Kit Shipping Fund at lwr.org/donate/shipping fund to support shipping quilts from the warehouse to countries overseas ($2.25 per quilt).
National Quilting Day was March 21, 2020 and marked 75 years of comforting the world with quilts. In 1945, by the end of the Second World War, an estimated one-fifth of the world’s Lutherans were left homeless. That same year, Lutheran churches in at least 20 states mobilized to help in Europe through a new agency called Lutheran World Relief. It was also the year that the first LWR Mission Quilts reached families in war-torn Europe. Within a decade, quilts and kits were reaching struggling neighbors across the globe. Today, the Quilt and Kit Ministry is LWR’s longest running program.
We received word of another opportunity for ministry outreach during this health crisis. You are encouraged to send cards or letters of appreciation to the AnMed staff thanking them for their work during COVID-19. Particular groups that could be addressed include: Physicians, Nurses, Staff in general, EVS – Environmental Services (they are the ones who courageously go into rooms and clean them before and after COVID-19 patients. The cards/letters can be sent in bundles in large envelopes to: Rev. Tricia G. Lytle, Manager of Spiritual Care, AnMed Health, 800 N. Fant Street, Anderson, SC 29621 and she will make sure that these get to the appropriate staff.
Options for Giving
The suspension of worship services caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has lead Holy Trinity Lutheran Church to expand the ways offerings can be received by the church now and into the future. This article outlines options currently available to you.
Option 1:
Place your offering in an envelope and mail it to Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 209 Broad St, Anderson, SC 29621. This option is the easiest way to send in your offering and incurs minimal cost to you, a $0.55 stamp, and no processing cost to the church. It allows you to easily earmark your donation to various categories. Using the USPS may be old school; but most of us have paid bills in this manner for many years.
Option 2:
Use your bank’s bill payment service. You can logon to your bank website, go to their payment center and create a ‘company’ payee for HTLC. Most banks will ask for the following information:
• Name of payee (Holy Trinity Lutheran Church),
• Address (209 Broad St, Anderson SC 29621,
• Telephone number (864-224-4220),
• Account number (use the number on your envelope), and
• Contact email address (htlc@htlc-anderson.com).
Once this information is entered, you can have your bank send your offering to HTLC on a date specified by you. HTLC will not be known to your bank as an Automatic Clearing House (ACH) partner and thus the bank will mail a check to HTLC usually 5 days prior to the date you request it be delivered. The check will arrive at HTLC in all appearances as if written and sent by you. Most banks prefer to use ACH withdrawal and deposit to send funds from your account to the payee account but have their own internal processes for determining if ACH will be used for a payee account. Over time, your bank may switch to using ACH vs. the US Mail, it is up to them.
One of the benefits of using your bank’s bill payment system is that you can have your pre-specified offering automatically sent on your schedule. Another benefit is that using your bank’s bill payment system is normally done without cost to you, check with your bank to make certain, and there is no processing cost to HTLC.
The major limitation to using bill pay is that the memo line on a check is usually limited to 32 characters making it difficult to designate multiple categories for your offering
Option 3:
Use Holy Trinity Lutheran Church’s new eGiving option. The ELCA has two preferred partners for eGiving — Tithe.ly and Vanco’s GivePlus. HTLC has selected Tithe.ly as our processor for eGiving. This means that you now have the option of making your offering by credit card or from a checking account via an ACH withdrawal. Tithe.ly allows you to apportion your gift by category and schedule automatic reoccurring offerings to HTLC among other options.
There is no cost to you to create a Tithe.ly account. However, there is a cost to the church each time you use Tithe.ly to make your offering. The costs incurred by HTLC for each transaction are:
Credit Card (other than AMEX): 2.4% of the gift + $0.25
AMEX Credit Card: 3.5% of the gift + $0.25
ACH/eCheck: 0.5% of the gift + $0.25
When you make a donation to the church using Tithe.ly you will have the option of “Covering the Fee”. For example, if you wish to use your VISA card to give $75 and elect to cover the cost of the processing in order that HTLC receive the full $75, your card would be charged $77.10, which is ($75 + $0.25) / (1 – (2.4 / 100)). If you covered the cost of an ACH withdrawal for a $75 donation, the amount would be $75.63.
To use Tithe.ly for eGiving, you need an account. You can create your account at any time by
going to https://get.tithe.ly/ and click on the red “SIGN UP FREE” button, then click the “GIVE TO CHURCH” option which will take you to a page that allows you to “GIVE
ONLINE”, which will take you to a page where you can create your account. Or, carefully type the direct path to create an account:
https://tithe.ly/give_new/www/#/tithely/give
At the date of this writing, March 29th, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Anderson will NOT be visible in the Tithe.ly app church list as our enrollment is in progress.
If you check the HTLC website (https://htic-anderson.org ) occasionally, you will know when eGiving is operational — a “Give” button or link will appear on our web page that will take you to Tithe.ly site where you can create a userid, set up your checking account or credit card as the source of your giving and begin using the service to send your offerings to HTLC. Lastly, there is an iPhone and Android app for Tithe.ly.
Option 4:
Soon, very soon we hope, the offering plate will be passed in worship service to collect your
offerings. But until then, please consider one of the above three options to give.
Feel free to reach out to Mike Cox (email: salzburg1951@gmail.com or cell: 301-788-8420) if you have questions.
