NewSong Board of Elders

Minutes of July 24, 2004 Meeting

The NewSong Board of Elders met Saturday morning, July 24, 2004 from 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM at the church office. Elders present included Dave Allen, Brian Brown, Michael Smith, Tom Frederick, and Steve Jackson. Curt Sloyer and Brent Orr were absent.

Dave Allen delivered a devotional referencing Psalm 63 and discussed the need for us all to “First seek and focus on God.” Dave talked about how we always seem to look “outside” for change when perhaps all along God is calling us to change ourselves, from the inside (with His help of course). Do we really love God as King David appears to in Psalm 63?

The meeting included the following discussions:

Pastor Steve provided a recap of his thoughts on the summer slow-down and commented that he was mildly discouraged about recent attendance trends but that he was encouraged about what lay ahead. There is a lot of excitement about getting back into the school year. An upcoming Leadership Huddle is being planned for August 15 where the church leadership will do visioning and planning work for the new ministry year. Staff reviews were completed by Steve and by Brian and feedback will be provided to the NewSong staff. Steve also asked the Elders to provide feedback on his performance by filling out one or more feedback sheets he provided. Michael will lead this effort by gathering all feedback and presenting to Steve in an anonymous format.

Sunday School attendance was discussed at length. We have only been having 1-3 children per week in our children’s class. The Elders agreed we need to pray if God is leading us to consider creative alternatives for Sunday School since our attendance seems to be so low. Sunday School appears not to be a priority – beginning with the Elders themselves as few of us or our children attend. If it is not important enough for us as the spiritual leaders of the church to attend, how can we expect others to make it a priority? As the discussion continued we all agreed that we believe discipleship is very important but for whatever reason the Sunday School hour just doesn’t seem to work for a lot of our members. Dave said that Melissa Tidwell said she had recently been to an event where she discussed this with others and found it to be a universal problem. Thus the discussion circled back around to what to do about Sunday School. The group agreed that we need to make this more of an issue of prayer and agreed to pray as a group at 9:30am on Sunday morning in Steve’s office and to pray separately seeking what God would have us do about Sunday School. Meanwhile we are to forward any ideas we have – that hopefully are divinely inspired – to Dave Allen. When we come to some agreement the Elders will meet with Vicki Eitel to decide on a plan.

Our finances have been off over the past few months. Through six months we are running behind on our giving which stood at $105,391 as of June 30 (our budgeted revenues are supposed to be $137,280 as of June 30). The good news is we are running slightly below our estimated expenses for the year. We budgeted total expenses for the year at $278,990 which means as of June 30th we should be at $139,495 but we've only spent $132,109. Still, we are running a deficit as of June 30, 2004 of $26,718 and we have had to dip into our Fidelity "savings account" to cover our operating expenses which we all agreed is not a good thing. It was agreed our Treasurer Tom Frederick would collect the facts and draft a letter explaining the current situation to the congregation. The other Elders will help Tom with the letter once he gets the basic draft done.

Brian Brown then gave a report on our Staff Reviews. The reviews went well with all the staff including Sandra, Melissa and Mandy. The Elders then went into a closed session to discuss Jason Lee’s review. Brian recommended a raise for Mandy which Dave will poll the Elders on since by this time in the meeting we did not have a quorum. Mandy also said a folding machine would help her a lot and the Elders will consider this as well.

Other new business:

Dave asked Steve to provide a checklist for when he is out so we know to cover everything that needs to be done.

Dave also mentioned that it is time for the Elders to begin thinking about whether they are interested in returning as Elders for another term, whether or not they still feel spiritually capable and qualified. And whether or not we are going to consider adding additional Elders. Everyone is supposed to respond back to Dave with their feelings on this matter as soon as they are able.

Dave also mentioned the Fall Festival and looking for a point person for that event.

The Elder of the Month for August will be Tom Frederick.

The next meeting will be held on Saturday, August 28^th at 8am at the church office. Steve Jackson will do the devotional.