Congregational Meeting Minutes

All Congregational Meeting Minutes

Sept.11, 2016

11:15 AM

 

Council in Attendance:

John Marone, Patrick Adams, Linda Chilson, Jennifer Parkins, Alice Bevans, Dave Troy

John called meeting to order and opened with a prayer

John started out by pointing out the Call Process bulletin board. And explaining about how the call process works. Where we are at this point and how we moved forward.

Jennifer explained that Pastor Dean Stewart was supposed to be here this Sunday but had been called away to a family emergency. He and his wife will be gone from now until October 19. In the meantime we either have to continue to do services ourselves or bring in a Supply Pastor. In order to do communion we must have an ordained Lutheran pastor. Carla Newman Smiley from Lutheran Campus Ministries is willing to come and help out a few Sundays, she already does one Sunday a month in Troy and she is not ordained so cannot deliver communion. 

Verna asked who we have in case of emergencies. We would like you to call John for now at the church phone number. He will have the church cell phone with him to receive those calls. In the case of emergencies we have a few pastors in the area that can do hospital visits or funeral services if needed. 

Jennifer went on to recap our visit with Pastor Dean Stewart. Jennifer, Alice, Patrick, Linda, and Louise met with Pastor Dean Stewart on Thursday, Sept 8th. We were all impressed with his knowledge and his sense of humor. He is willing to come and do full-time while we are in the call process. He is anxious to do adult classes and other studies. While he is away he will look over their financial need and get back with us about what he would like in terms of salary. Patrick will go through our budget to decide what we will be able to pay him.

Karen asked what our plans are for the parsonage is. John explained that we are not sure at this point that Bishop Wells encouraged us to hang onto it until we know what a new pastor’s needs may be. In the meantime we need to do some work on it to get it ready for whatever we do decide to do. Patrick pointed out that whatever we do do with the parsonage the congregation needs to be in on that decision and that it will be voted on by everyone, it is not the council’s job to make that decision on our own. We just look at the options and then decide what we think are the best course of action and bring it back to the congregation.

Norma asked how much of an increase are we looking at for a new pastor’s salary? John explained that is not something we know at this point but that we are thinking rather than much of an increase we will need to look at someone with five years or less experience quite possibly even a new seminarian.  One of the steps in deciding what we can offer as salary is to do a financial review.  This is then put in a document that is sent to the synod, pastors searching for a new call also fill out a document and send it to the synod with what they need in terms of salary, housing and other factors. New seminarians will be available in October (which we are too late for), January and February. Bishop Wells advised us that this process will take us as long as we need it to.

Doug asked how soon will we pick a call committee and how do we pick the call committee.  John explained that we are not quite that point yet but are getting close. There may be some members of the congregation that are asked to be on the committee but also those that feel they would like to be on the committee may also put their name in and are encouraged to. There is a questionnaire that will be sent out in the next week that will help that call committee fill out the Ministry Site Profile that gets sent to the synod.  This profile is what the synod uses to match prospective pastors to us. Prospective pastors have a profile they fill out also and that is used by the synod to help match them up to ministry sites.

John then explained that we had two boards that we were going to ask people help us fill up.

We are asking what you would like to hang on to.  What are you willing to let go of?

In the process of trying to come up with answers it was decided we needed a third board for what we aspire to be.

The things we came up with that we want to hold onto are:

• Our relationships with each other
• Music
• Youth ministry-Sunday  School
• Pledging
• Wednesday morning bible studies
• Theology on tap
• Community service and events
• Children’s sermon
• Home visits
• Traditional liturgy/traditional and new
• Being faithful Christians
• Inspire group
• Welcoming and accepting of everyone
• Fun and loving

The things we are willing to let go of are:

• Our ideas of what youth ministry used to look like
• Holding onto traditional times for church and Sunday School
• Stringent and restrictive ideas
• Adiaphora-Greek for all the stuff that doesn’t matter and gets in the way of praising God
• Exclusionism

Things we aspire to be

• Invitational and inclusive
• Actively visit members and each other
• Good communication
  Email, blog, newsletter, phone tree, Facebook
• Prayer Chain-more ways to care for each other, add in the bulletin who needs prayers
• Financial stability-fund raising and community activities
• Being involved in all aspects of church needs to be all members
• We need to be better Evangelists
• Excited about God’s work and making church relevant to all!!

 

These boards will stay at the church for people to more comments on if they would like.

Meeting adjourned at 12:45