IPS Alumna Leads Church in Giving $500 Checks to Parishioners

Rev. Laura Truax graduated from IPS with a Master’s of Arts in Pastoral Studies and a Master’s of Divinity. She is currently the senior pastor at LaSalle Street Church.

Spearheaded by Rev. Truax, LaSalle Street Church distributed checks to its parishioners in hopes that they use it to give back to the community over the Christmas season. The full story was featured in a Chicago Tribune article (below).

Loyola IPS is proud to call Rev. Truax an alumna and hope her work inspires others to think outside the box and do great things.

Read more about Rev. Truax and LaSalle Street Church here. 

Chicago Tribune article reads:

Church gives congregants $500 each to do good

“Christmas came early for people in the pews of LaSalle Street Church the first Sunday in September. That morning their pastor handed them $500 checks.

The Rev. Laura Truax, pastor of the evangelical church in Chicago’s Near North neighborhood, told worshippers that the money came with no strings attached, only encouragement to do good works and an early December deadline to either spend, cash or deposit the checks.

The money, totaling $160,000, came from a windfall of more than $1.6 million — proceeds from the sale of Atrium Village, a racially integrated housing development that was the collaboration of four neighborhood churches: Fourth Presbyterian, St. Matthew United Methodist, Holy Family Lutheran and LaSalle.

While each church has managed the income differently, LaSalle began by setting aside the traditional tithe — 10 percent of its share — for about 320 of its worshippers.”

To find out her inspiration behind the checks and what the parishioners did with the money continue reading on Chicago Tribune.

 

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