Grant requests
Coaching for Congregations
Coaching for Pastors
Health and Renewal
Technology
Finances
Lack of clarity on where we’re at
Unclear lines of responsibility – who decides where money is spent and when?
Reimbursement system
Jody Rice opened our meeting reading from Psalm 62. The Elders and Deacons then went into their districts to spend time in prayer and discussing any pressing pastoral concerns.
During our staff-led discussion time, we received updates on several grants that are being applied for from our denominations Sustaining Congregational Excellence (SCE) program. These grants are being applied for in the following areas:
1.Coaching for Congregations – we’ve applied to have a coach work alongside our congregation to help us figure out how to develop leaders of all types: Council members, ministry leaders and small group leaders;
2.Coaching for Pastor Cal – in the areas of spiritual growth/disciplines and pastoral care;
3.Health and Renewal (due June 1) – to provide for training for Bonnie and small group leaders as well as coaching for designing and implementing the small group ministry. This application is due June1;
4.Technology (due July 1) – this one will cover new items (e.g. a hand-held cordless mic or replacements for older computers).
These grants are available to smaller congregations. SCE will pay 75% of the expenses, but does require the congregation to pay 25%.
We also began a discussion of how we structure our finances. We struggle to have everyone know where we are at financially, it’s not always clear who is making financial decisions and we would like to move away from the use of personal funds that need to be reimbursed. Needless to say, there was a lot of discussion – which will help us when we bring up the topic again, this time with some staff-led direction.
This discussion led nicely into a discussion of the proposed budget. The budgeted amount from last year needed to be reduced for this year, in large part because we have only received roughly ½ of the budget slips back. We will try one more time to get slips back, then propose the budget based on what we have. Our loan balance as of May 24 is $746,064. We’ve set the annual Congregational Meeting for June 28 to approve the budget and to select Elders and Deacons. We have four Elder nominees and are just waiting to finalize Deacon nominees.
We reviewed minutes and/or received verbal reports on many of the different ministries and from the staff. Bonnie’s report raised an interesting discussion on how to handle large events. In the recent past, we have had some very large events that involved a lot of volunteer hours…and a lot of Bonnie’s time. The question is how we can host large events like these without overwhelming our volunteers and without overwhelming Bonnie. The suggestion is to find a Large Event Coordinator who will find people to take care of technology/sound, set-up and take down, kitchen, program/worship, publicity and custodial needs.
