NewSong Board of Elders

Minutes of February 12, 2005 Meeting

The NewSong Board of Elders met Saturday February 12 from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at the church. Elders present were Dave Allen, Michael Smith, Brian Brown, Tom Frederick, Steve Jackson, and Brent Orr. Curt Sloyer was absent as he had to work.

Dave Allen delivered a short devotional using Revelation 2:1-7 reminding us of the Lord’s words to the “angel” of the church in Ephesus and asking us if perhaps the “angel” is us: “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance…You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary…Remember your first love…Repent and do the things you did at first…”

The meeting included the following discussions:

Pastor’s report:

Steve thanked the Elders for their participation in Luke Mills funeral service and for their assistance in the Ash Wednesday service. He expressed his gratitude and happiness that the Elders are doing such a great job.

Steve also mentioned that he is not oblivious to the current doldrums the church seems to be in. Steve said he has been in prayer about this and all he is hearing from God is “Be patient and wait” and “Don’t rush in to fill the void.”

Steve passed out copies of the 2004 year end profit and loss statements. The church made up a tremendous amount of ground in the final quarter of 2004 to finish with a much more modest loss than originally anticipated. Steve also passed out the January, 2005 profit and loss statement and accompanying documents. We started off with a loss in the first month of 2005, but we also had some unusual, one-time expenses.

Steve then invited the Elders to step back from the “tree” level of our work together and look at the “forest.” Steve cast his vision of having our land purchased for the eventual permanent home of our church by the halfway of our current lease at Central Plaza and our first unit built on that land by the time the lease expires in Oct. 2008. We are now one year and three months into our five year lease at Central Plaza. For Steve’s vision to become a reality we need to purchase our land by April, 2006 which is the halfway point in our lease. Steve noted that this date is only a little over a year away from now. If we are going to purchase land something needs to be started in the immediate future. Steve suggested two things for the group to begin praying about. First, exactly where do we want to locate the church and second, for someone to either donate or tremendously discount land for us as a church. Lively discussion ensued and the group agreed we need to talk to a banker about a typical pro-forma to purchase land as a church (borrowing procedure, etc) and we need to start looking around for potential church sites.

Old Business

Tsunami Funds – NewSong collected $1268.00 for the Tsunami Relief Fund. This money will be send to the American Red Cross. At one time we considered adding some of our regular offering to the Place with these funds, but we decided it would be better to keep on donating at the same level to the Place for the time being. Brian Brown then asked if we could consider sending part of our regular outreach monies to Enlace in El Salvador. Steve suggested that Brian talk to B J Fisher who is outreach coordinator. Steve also suggested that it might be nice to divide our monthly offering as follows: 50% (2 weeks worth) to the Place, 25% to a regional benevolence like the Atlanta Union Mission (1 week’s worth) and 25% internationally to some organization like Enlace (1 week’s worth). Brian will talk to BJ.

Two Services – The idea of 2 services has not been met with a positive response. Most thoughts are that it would divide the congregation and the need is not critical at this point.

Kitchen Safety – A member of the congregation has pointed out that our kitchen area could be safer when it comes to young children. Dave will ask our building maintenance group (John Blanquicet etal) to install childproof mechanisms on the cabinets and drawers.

New Business

Elders of the Month for the upcoming months are as follows:

March – Brian Brown
April – Tom Frederick
May – Curt Sloyer
June – Michael Smith
July – Brent Orr

The Elder of the month will also do the devotional at the monthly meeting.

Pre-Service Prayer – The decision was made to move up our pre-service prayer from 9:40 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. each Sunday morning. This will allow time for the Elders who are on stage to get up stairs in time for the beginning of pre-service activities.

Upcoming Events:

Steve will be out of the pulpit on Sun. April 3 and Dave Allen will be speaking that day.

Brian Brown is the March Elder of the Month and will do the devotional at the next meeting to be held on Saturday, March 12 at the Church office.

The meeting concluded in prayer at 10:30