Church Council Meeting
Monday, October 15, 2012
Charlie opened meeting with unison reading of the mission
statement.
Welcome and Roll
Call……… Gail Conschafter
Attendees: Pastor Larry, Charlie Yund, Fred Claus, Liz
VonWald, Mike Fonte, Anne Hipp, Chris Hipp, Jan Garrison, John Tomasula, Gail
Conschafter, Terri Bellanca, Laura Mason, Liz VonWald, John Harbison, Sheila
Rader, Sue Kaiser, Tom Burkman, Fred Claus, Bobbie Cap, Donna LaValle
Nate opened in prayer.
John Harbison shared his God sightings regarding the
mission’s project. Sheila and Jan shared
the wonderful time shared about the women’s retreat over the weekend. Tom Burkman shared that his son has been
appointed Lay Leader in his district in Louisiana. Fred commented on how good it was to see Tom
in church on Sunday. Bobbie shared of
her experience while vacationing in Maine.
Minutes from September’s meeting were approved as written.
Motioned by Fred Claus and seconded by Laura Mason.
Changes to Agenda: Fred Claus would like to speak.
Calendar Events:
o Taste
of Trinity is set for October 20. Liz asked if anyone might like to offer their
trunk, we can use it. Candy is also
needed. Drop off at the church office
during the week. Anytime before Saturday
is fine. Baskets are being collected in
the church office. Nate has a copy of the kitchen schedule if anyone needs to
see it to arrange for kitchen time.
o One
Starry Night is December 2. Sheila Rader and Ellie Robinson are working
hard to make this a huge success. It
will take part in every corner of the church.
It is a great community outreach.
We are moving ahead. Four women
have offered to do 2 more rooms.
Promotion is now a priority. Men
are needed to work in Santa’s workshop.
Liz suggested a trunk be decorated for One Starry Night….
o ACE
Seminar is February 9. Tom Burkman is working on the theme of
Forgiveness. Dr. Timothy Chambers has
agreed to be a speaker.
o Shrove
Pancake Tuesday is February 12, 2013. This is sponsored by the Bell Ringers.
o December 16 Christmas Concert with meal
between service and concert. Concert is
scheduled for 12 but may be moved to 12:30.
Kid’s performance will be at both 9:00 and 10:30 services.
o Youth Fundraisers are in progress but
no dates are available. Nate reported
that they are contemplating selling wreaths again this year.
o Possible Prayer Vigil to be held on Election
Day. Sue will take care of publicity and
sign up for this event. (This Friday is
Tidings deadline!)
o Question about New Year’s Eve Service. We have time to decide.
Charlie commented on keeping
reports crisp and to the point.
Finance Stewardship focus update:
Chris Hipp reported:
From the blog:
Through September General Fund income is
$262k vs. $260 in 2011. Spending is $265k vs. $279k last year. The income model
we are using forecasts income at year-end to be about $350k vs. a budget of
$379k. Spending is, however $14k below 2011 pointing to a shortfall of $10-20k.
Apportionments were inadvertently not paid in September, but will be paid along
with the October portion.
We support a proposal from Pastor Baird to change the Stewardship process for
2013. We will seek pledges which represent the giver's commitment as a
Christian to the life of our Church. These will be collected and kept unopened,
to be returned to the giver at mid-year to enable the giver to monitor progress
toward the commitment. A budget will be assembled and progress toward meeting
it carefully monitored. Spending changes will be made as necessary to meet our
financial responsibilities.
Communications are key to making this new process successful. This will start
with a letter outlining the planned process to the congregation, to be mailed
by month-end along with 3rd Quarter giver's statements.
Commitment
Sunday will be December 2nd.
Four
quarterly letters will go out in 2013 to report progress.
Our annual Church Charge Conference will be November 17th. Since this is early
in out Stewardship and budgeting cycle we will again present only the
Ministerial compensation packages for approval at this meeting.
Chris feels this stewardship
campaign will be an exciting process. A
question was posed about salaries. “What
is the goal?” Goal is to connect
behavior to expectations… for both the spender and the giver. We are going to a line by line budget review
to make each committee aware of what is there.
Charlie spoke on priorities such as spiritual growth, youth and young
families. Adult ministries will continue to be supported financially. Another approach is the Right Now
series. Has this been tried somewhere
else? We are entering into the cutting
edge of church stewardship. Most comes
from the Alban Institute and a book called Creating
Congregations of Generous People by Michael Durall. There are multiple checkpoints during the
year where adjustments can be made. This
has been tried extensively on the Cornerstone District. They led the conference on meeting their
apportionments during this time. Pastor Larry read a paragraph from the book
about “giving to the budget.” Pastor Larry has had experience with this and
had the wonderful experience of exceeding their budget each year. He admitted it is a bit frightening. The letter sent kicks off the campaign, but
it does not end with the letter. People
are still going to be invited to submit a pledge. The finance will only be able to track it on
a weekly basis by what’s coming in on a weekly basis. It’s asking the congregation to give in a way
that will stretch their stewardship while we are doing this discipleship
training. Roughly 50% of our
congregation pledges. This is not a
mandate, just a strong suggestion from the senior Pastor.
Church Charge Conference is
Saturday, November 17 at 4 PM. Pastor’s
(both) compensation packages need to be in place by this date. We will not have a budget ready, and will
defer that to a January meeting. Charlie
asked that all would attend the Charge Conference meeting. Charlie also asked if we might like to meet
after the Charge Conference as a Council instead of meeting on Monday. For the time being, we will keep the two
meetings separate until further notice.
What information is available
about the stewardship program? There is
nothing in writing as of yet. Council
has to approve the new procedure before anything moves forward. This program makes givers look at their
giving in regards to their relationship with God. It makes it more personal. The numbers from this years’ budget will be
rolled over and then closely monitored and compared to what is actually coming
in.
Tom Burkman moved we adopt this
program and Sheila Rader seconded the motion. The motion passed
unanimously.
Missional Event Scheduling
Charlie reviewed what the
process is for outreach efforts and the scheduling of such. There is a calendar that has been
created. Thank you to that committee;
especially John Harbison and Jessica Skelly that put that calendar
together. Charlie asked that the process
be evaluated at the end of 2012 as stated in the letter that was circulated
among all committees. John shared his frustration with only giving a project
only one month. There are several
missions we support as a church. There may be several components to one
particular project, which makes it difficult to target all the fundraising in a
month. To focus on a project in one
month is ok, but we cannot limit the fundraising for that event to only one
month. We were trying to avoid having
several groups raising funds all on one Sunday.
Nate reported that the Youth Committee is working on putting a calendar
for fundraising and present it to the Mission Committee. Fred reminded us that Trunk or Treat is not a
“fundraiser” but a community outreach.
No money is raised. Discussion
followed on the process. A suggestion
was to put a sign by Mission Central to inform anyone and everyone as to what
is going on in the life of the church – whether you are interesting in
fundraising or giving!
Trustees are encouraging us to
set aside some specific area for missions and collections. We find there is congestion when it comes
time to fundraising. Perhaps an area can
be set up for the “giving,” ect. Trustees
and Missions should work together on this.
Right Now – “The Power of a Whisper”
Fred Claus shared how is using
this. He has been asked to put together
a men’s group of fathers of school aged children. He is using Right Now to watch a weekly
installment and then communicate weekly by e mail and then get together about
once a month for an activity. This is
the ideal use of the program. Nate
shared that if you have not looked at this; please take some time to do so. He is using it with the MS and HS
programs. The response has been very
positive.
A portion of the excerpt was
shown. We were encouraged to log in and
watch the rest of the video to see the outcome.
One of the focal points is to
develop disciples and follow Jesus. This
series helps us do both!
Committee Reports:
Is the nominating committee in position to fill vacant
positions that are upcoming? SPRC and
Trustee committees have vacancies and need to be filled by the Church Charge
Conference meeting.
The Bill Hybel series is the beginning for our evangelism
committee.
We also need a technical group with all the technology that is
up and coming. This may be the beginning
of a new committee with everything that is happening.
Pastor Larry announced that Tom DeLoughery is the conference
Adult Ministry coordinator.
Summary:
Larry remarked that as we get used to him as being our pastor,
we are going to be “tossed” some new approaches to some issues. There may be mixed feelings about these, but
new ideas will always be in the works. All items will coincide with our mission
statement.
Next meeting is scheduled for
Monday, November 19 at 7 PM
Larry closed in prayer.
Meeting adjourned at 8:55 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Gail Conschafter
