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NewSong Board of Elders

Minutes of July 15, 2007 Meeting

The NewSong Board of Elders met on Sunday morning, July 15, 2007 from 9:00 to 10:05am at the Church. Elders present included: Brian Brown, Jerry Cauley, Ed Densmore, Vicki Eitel, and Steve Jackson. Brent Orr and our newest Elder Linda Blanchard were unable to attend the meeting.

After prayer Pastor Steve began the meeting by giving his pastor’s report. The following is a recap of that report:

The second quarter of the year closed out on June 30^th at NewSong. Overall the month of June was a time of slowing down for summer (for instance, Sunday School stopped for the summer after the 10^th of June). But some areas are still going strong. Jerry Cauley preached for me on the 10^th and challenged the congregation to take off their “feed me” bibs and to put on an apron of service. On the 17^th we celebrated Father’s Day by recognizing our dads with a key ring. Also on 17^th our El Salvador Mission team left for a very successful week of mission work, returning on the 24^th. This year NewSong gave $15,000 toward the project and seven NewSong members worked on a water project at Las Delicias. Our youth went on retreat to a Big Stuf camp at Panama City Beach, Florida from June 17-21^st. The youth also went tubing at Buford Dam on the 3^rd for their “Super Sunday” event for June. According to Kevin Sanders we are averaging about 10-12 a Sunday at youth on Sunday nights. The women of NewSong continued their Tuesday night study on “Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World.” They also had a Coffee and Prayer meeting on Sat, June 2^nd. Our men continued using the “Being God’s Man” series with a study titled, “Being God’s Man By Finding Contentment.” The men also had their monthly breakfast meeting on the 16^th with Jerry Cauley presenting a great talk on worry.

Other Items

Average YTD worship attendance at the end of June declined by four more people to 136. Attendance for the four Sundays was 131, 137, 106, and 91. As mentioned last month, our summer drop off in attendance is really hitting us hard with folks taking vacations, mission trips, etc…

Current membership statistics as of the end of June are slightly different than in previous months. Our number of member families remains the same at 60. It has been a long time since we’ve updated our full membership roll to include those who have since turned 18 years old (from the preparatory roll). This came to light when it was time to vote for the new Elder. We now have 118 full members, 66 preparatory members and 32 constituent members for a total of 216.

Financially speaking, revenues for the month were $15,765 and expenses were $26,910 with expenses exceeding revenues by $11,145 for the month. Our YTD numbers through the end of June are revenues of $129,599 and expenses of $119,386 with revenues exceeding expenses by $9,213. The monthly numbers are slightly deceiving because some of what we paid out to El Salvador showed up at the end of May. As of the date of this report (07-12-07) our net income is $6,903. Obviously our cushion is rapidly diminishing due to our “summer slump.” The balance in our Fidelity reserve account at the end of June stands at $37,097.

Coming Up:

As for my preaching this summer, I have continued preaching stand-alone messages based on the Revised Common Lectionary. Beginning July 22^nd I will begin a new series of messages called “Practical Christianity,” also based on the lectionary, in which I will preach on such practical Christian issues as setting priorities, prayer, possessions, perseverance, the promises of God, and God’s provision. As always I invite any of the Elders to consider speaking for me on a Sunday. I would welcome the break and it would be good for the congregation to hear from more of you.

Sunday School has taken a break for the summer (eff. 06-10).

Our Children will have VBS from July 23-26 here at NewSong with a western theme this year called “Avalanche Ranch.” Rhonda Sloyer has also planned a tubing trip to Helen, GA on July 21^st.

Our youth will continue meeting on Sunday nights. They also do a “Super Sunday” each month where they go off-campus for a fun event. Attendance at youth has leveled off at about 8-10 per Sunday night. We have a good group of rising 6^th graders that will boost attendance if their parents will bring them.

Our Katrina Relief mission is finally planned. Dawn and Chuck Kirkland will be leading a team of about 10 to the Gulfport, Mississippi area to work with the Gulf Coast Baptist Association rehabilitating homes. The trip is planned for August 1-5 and the cost is $150 per person. They will be carpooling down, staying in a local church, and cooking for themselves. I will be accompanying them on this trip.

Also in outreach, on July 24^th NewSong will be serving lunch at The Place, sponsoring their monthly Senior Luncheon that day.

Our Fellowship Ministry has slowed down their activities with everyone being on vacation, etc… The next event planned is a trip to Lake Lanier Islands on August 4^th.

The Women are wrapping up their current study and will begin a new Beth Moore study in July. They meet on Tuesday nights and are led by Michele Green.

2007-08 Church Year – I have already begun doing some planning for the upcoming church year, which seems to mirror the academic year in terms of activity levels. I would like to move up the ministry year to where we do our campaign for ministry positions, set the budget, etc.. in August (people are coming back to normal routines then). The actual ministry year would kick-off the Sunday after Labor Day (Sept. 9^th). After the Elders decide on our focus I will be meeting with all our ministry leaders to attain alignment, and we will do some scheduling of dates and activities, etc… I’m hopeful that our reading the Simple Church book as Elders will stimulate some good thinking about next year for us as Elders which I can then feed back to the leaders and to the general leadership of the church.

Following the pastor’s report the following old business items were discussed:

- Elder Nominations: Linda Blanchard was elected in our recent Elder election held on July 1 and July 8. 54 votes were cast out of a possible 118 (44%). Unfortunately Linda was unable to attend today’s meeting due to an out-of-town obligation. She will join us for our next meeting and already has been reading the Simple Church book.

- Simple Church at NSCC – We began our discussion of the Simple Church book by agreeing it definitely has some merit for us to look into. Streamlining and simplifying are obviously helpful endeavors to any organization.

- 2007-08 Ministry Year – Steve discussed his wish to move up the ministry year from its start in the past in October to a start date of the Sunday after Labor Day. The BOE said they have no objections to this but agree that it will be difficult to do because so much has to be decided upon between now and then and there is so little time. Steve said he’s going to try to move it up as much as he can.

Tentative Timeline to start 2007-08 ministry year:

By July 30 – Elders discuss Simple Church, decide on simple process focus. (dates?)

By July 30 – Steve meets with leadership to foster understanding and alignment.

By August 12 – Steve has determined who is coming back as leaders in what areas and has asked for their budget information.

By August 19^th – Steve has the Ministry booklet together.

By August 26^th – Ministry booklets are distributed.

By Sept 9^th – All ministry booklets are in, including job sign-ups and financial estimates of giving. Vote on 2008 Budget. New year kicks off. New jobs begin during remainder of September, everything is definitely up and running by Oct. 1^st

New Business:

- Advertising - The BOE decided at an earlier meeting to try to do more promotion of the church so people in the community know who and where we are. Steve mentioned billboards, but they seem prohibitively expensive. We agreed that newspaper ads and mailers (fliers) don’t seem to be all that effective. The way the majority of the newcomers to NewSong mentioned was through our website. It was suggested that perhaps we should look into having someone redesign a really professional-looking website. Other suggestions included advertising on 104.7 The Fish (radio) and the Forsyth Herald (a free paper) and at the local movie theater in the rolling ads they do before the movie. Steve also mentioned sprucing up our banner(s) outside which have remained unchanged for quite a long time now.

- Leadership – Discussion was held concerning leadership in the praise band and in other areas of the church and how the Elders felt our leaders were faring, which areas needed shoring up or changing. A good discussion was held here with some specific instructions for Steve to look into.

The Elder of the Month for August will be Ed Densmore

Next Meeting Date – our next regular meeting date is Sunday, August 19^th at 4pm at the church. The Elders will meet in a special work session on Weds evening, July 18^th from 6-8pm to discuss the Simple Church book.

The meeting was adjourned with prayer at 10:05am