NewSong Interim Council

Minutes of January 6, 2003 Meeting

The NewSong Leadership Team met on Monday, January 6, 2003 from 7:00PM to 9:15PM at the church office. All Interim Council members were present and accounted for: Dave Allen, Rebecca Brown, Tom Frederick, Steve Jackson, Brent Orr, Curt Sloyer and Michael Smith.

The meeting opened with prayer and a brief discussion about how each Council Member is feeling about how things are going at NSCC. The consensus was that things are going well, and definitely on the upswing from about six months ago. Favorable items included: children seem excited about coming, momentum is building, spiritual passion higher, more involvement by members, increase in connections through small groups, and a clarification of our personal and the church’s corporate calling from God. The Purpose Driven Life campaign was cited as a major reason for this stirring.

Old Business

1. We reviewed the 2002 Year End attendance and offering numbers. Our average attendance for the year ended at 158, with average weekly offerings of $3,139. Membership gains since last meeting include the Fisher and Densmore families and Chloe Boles. There were no membership losses. Tom Frederick then led a discussion about our year-end financial condition. For the year our operating expenses exceeded our revenues by $633. Tom suggested that assuming a conservative increase in giving and taking into account the anticipated cost of the new facility, we would have a shortfall of approximately $34,000 next year. We agreed this is unacceptable; we do not want to eat into our savings. Curt Sloyer pointed out that we must either cut expenses, or raise revenues – so we decided to pursue a stewardship awareness campaign.

This stewardship awareness campaign will be used to raise the level of our giving and will include: producing a budget, promoting the new facility and all the ministry that will occur there (blueprints, photos, etc…), as well as teaching and drama with a focus on stewardship and tithing. Steve, Brent, Dave and Tom agreed to serve on a sub-team to work on the particulars of the campaign.

As for the 2003 Budget, it was agreed to use Tom’s Excel spreadsheet as the starting point for our budget. Tom will send everyone a copy of this via Email which we will each review and suggest changes we might think of, before adopting a “round-number budget” to use for 2003.

2. Other Old Business talked about includes: continuing delays on the Central Plaza Building due mainly to weather. The estimated completing date is still March, but Steve said that looks doubtful. Also, Small Groups are increasing with the Eitel and Tidwell families starting a series of meetings to promote and start one or more small groups. We also discussed Steve’s upcoming surgery. Steve expects to be out of the pulpit on Feb. 9, 16, and 23, hopefully returning on March 2. Steve has several possible speakers in mind for those Sundays including Dave Allen, Amy Jackson, Jason Lee, Vicki Eitel, Brent Orr, or others who may express an interest.

New Business

1. The first item of new business was a discussion about whether or not to hire Jason Lee as our new Youth Pastor. The entire Council (minus Steve and plus Lawrence Williams) met with Jason on Jan. 2 and the group was impressed with him. Discussion was held concerning if we were moving too quickly, and whether or not to attempt to hire Jason at a lower salary, but in the end a motion was made to hire Jason, which had consensus in the group. Tom Frederick will advise Jason telling him the position is his at $1500 a month (payable bi-monthly) effective 7-15-03 with the only reservations being that both parties reserve the right to “walk away” in the first 90 days with no questions asked and that Jason and Rachel must “pass” the background check we are running.
2. Related to this discussion, Steve suggested that before long the church should consider paying other staff (like Sandra Allen and Melissa Tidwell). Eventually, each major area of ministry (youth, children, missions, evangelism, discipleship, etc…should have a paid staff person heading that area whose job is to help others in the church get involved in ministry.
3. Children’s Ministry: Steve handed out documents from Melissa Tidwell including her budget, projected plans for the year, worker schedules and more. She is doing a great job and excitement and enthusiasm is building in the children’s area. Also Steve announced that Rhonda Sloyer has agreed to be this year’s VBS Director.
4. Ministry Area Facilitator: Steve handed out documents from Vicki Eitel concerning getting the church more aligned in terms of our spiritual gifts and our respective ministries and attempting to format the structure of NSCC via an organization chart.
5. Mid-week will have to wait until we can get space as the Sawnee Center does not have room for us.
6. We will be giving all the Council Members keys to the front door of the Church Office so they can let others in for meetings. It was stressed to make certain these keys are not copied or released to others (except spouses).
7. As the meeting was winding down, Dave Allen reminded the group we have still not tackled the By-Laws and we need to do that. It was agreed we should set a separate meeting for that specifically to do that. Steve will Email all members the latest copy of the By-Laws for us to review and mark up. We will meet at the Church Office on Weds. Jan. 22 at 6PM for a pizza supper and work our way through the By-Laws.
8. Steve then suggested that what we really need is a Council Leader to see that the business that needs to get taken care of gets done. Everyone seemed to agree. Steve asked that we pray about that and suggested that perhaps before or at our next meeting we could elect a Council Leader and Assistant Leader.

After closing in prayer the meeting was adjourned at 9:15PM.

The next regular monthly meeting set for Monday, Feb. 3, 2003 at 7:00pm at the church office. The By-Law meeting is Weds. Jan. 22 at 6PM.