BUDGETING OUR LSTC HYDE PARK FUNDRAISER

1. Reformation's Black Nativity Meets Kwanzaa Jazz & Poetry Candlelight Service, like the original 1950s Jazz Vespers created by John Garcia Gensel-Lutheran Pastor to New York City's Jazz community,  is an emergency fundraiser for our church-that serves as the central gathering space of our outreach to the City's Africana artists and activists communities.  Specifically, we are challenged to meet essential boiler repairs for this coming Chicago's winter. 

Here, we need financial help with regard to securing either LSTC'S Chapel space or Augustana Lutheran-Hyde Park's Sanctuary in the form of one-or more-of the following three options:

A) an in-kind service as a part of either LSTC'S or Augustana Lutheran-Hyde Park's partnership and outreach to the Metro Chicago Synod's South Side Conference of African Descent Congregations-as in the past;

B) allow access to either space on a consignment basis i.e., deferring payment until we receive our gross ticket sales receipts via brownpapertickets.com; 

C) that the financing of either LSTC or Augustana Lutheran-Hyde Park space use be done via either maximally underwriting, thru ELCA African Descent Ministries Programming Desk, or its minimally guarantying space use payment-with the proviso that 20% of the net receipts of our event go to the reorganizing Chicago Chapter of the African Descent Lutheran Association; or

D) any combination thereof.

2.  About our fundraiser plan. 

2.1  According to Bob Berridge, LSTC VP of Operations, their Chapel seats 350-400 people-depending on the seating arrangement.   Alternatively, we estimate that Augustana Lutheran seats about 300.

2.2  Our fund raising goal is to raise from $12K to $14k gross.  

2.3  Our strategy is to market our event via brownpapertickets.com, itself a popular online ticket sales organization with its own built-in promotional capacity,  at $20 per person.  Note: We are talking here of doing two services with a goal of attracting 300 people per service via a vigorous electronic marketing campaign.

2.3  Reformation is providing the production.  We provide the performance script (inclusive of our Jazz music ministry, the selected Langston Hughes body of poetry as well as actor/readers).

2.4)  Reformation's team will also supply online outreach complimentary to that of brownpapertickets.com.  More, similar cooperation from ADLA Program Desk, LSTC Online Media, ADLA National Organization, and ADLA Chicago Chapter-reorganizing have the combined capacity to help reasonably meet our fundraiser goal.

2.4  Finally, Reformation's Black Nativity Meets Kwanzaa Jazz & Poetry Candlelight Service should be seen for what it is: i.e., a much needed African American ministries contribution to the multicultural project of either LSTC or Augustana Lutheran-Hyde Park.  

Respectfully submitted: Rev. Joel Washington (Khunanpu Sangoma) for Black Nativity Meets Kwanzaa Jazz & Poetry Candlelight Service and Reformation Church Chicago ("Young Barack Obama's community organizing sanctuary"), 12-2-15 Updated.   

Key Notes on Reformation's Black Nativity Meets Kwanzaa Jazz Vespers Holiday Service

1. About Langston Hughes' "Black Nativity-A Gospel Song Play."

1.1 Considered in his day as the "Poet Laureate of (Black) America," Langston Hughes (1902-1967) also holds the distinction of being recognized (among his peers) as the first widely successful African American/African world freelance writer i.e., the first Black writer to make his living solely by way of his work.

1.2 During the late 1940s and early 1950s Hughes, via trial and error, created a new literary genre which he called "the gospel-song play."

1.3 "Black Nativity (1953)" -then and now- stands as the most successful of Hughes's gospel-song plays (winning not only national but international acclaim).

1.4 More, to date, "Black Nativity" is the most popular holiday revival theater production among both Black Theater artists and audiences alike.   Note: The recent 2013 "Black Nativity" movie production, released during that year's holiday season, Co-Produced by T. D. Jakes, starring Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett, and Jennifer Hudson, and easily accessible on the internet is a dramatic case in point of the Hughes gospel-song-play's continued popularity during the holiday season.

2. About Kwanzaa.

2.1 Created in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga, Professor and Chair of Africana Studies at CSULB, Kwanzaa is the most widely celebrated African cultural holiday both in the U.S. and throughout the African world. 

2.2 Set apart as a time of ingathering of Africana families, communities, and cultures as well as a time for, to use the words of Dr. Karenga, "recommitment to the best of what it means to be African and human in the fullest sense," Kwanzaa is not necessarily in contrast with but serves as a compliment to Hughes' "Black Nativity."

2.3 The above said Reformation Church-Chicago's service of BLACK NATIVITY MEETS KWANZAA JAZZ VESPERS (A Holidays Are Forever Candlelight Celebration) is envisioned as a unique combining of both excerpts from Hughes' Africana Christmas works as well as excerpts from his Black History and culture works-covering both the Black American and African world experience and history-that serves as a complimentary segue into the Kwanzaa dimension of our distinctive holiday celebration.

3.  About Jazz Vespers.

3.1 Reformation's Jazz Vespers is an evening candlelight worship service organized to serve the African American Jazz community especially but not exclusively.  It is the key outreach arm of Reformation's Jazz Ministry to the Chicago's Africana activists' and artists' communities.  Ours is an uplifting spiritual and not simply an entertainment service.  Reformation's Jazz Vespers is emergent to uplift inner-city Chicago's engaged social actors and creative artists as well as their families and immediate communities.

The target launch dates for "Black Nativity Meets Kwanzaa Jazz Vespers" are Saturday evening, 26 December, 2015 and Sunday evening 27, December, 2015 respectively.

Respectfully submitted: Pastor Joel Washington (Khunanpu Sangoma) for Reformation Church-Chicago's COJAM and BLACK NATIVITY MEETS KWANZAA JAZZ VERSPERS, Updated: 11/4/15.