NewSong Board of Elders

Minutes of Oct. 16 Meeting

The NewSong Board of Elders met Saturday evening, October, 16, 2004 from 5:00pm to 6:30pm at the home of Dave and Sandra Allen. The Elders also enjoyed a meal together after the meeting. Elders present were Dave Allen, Brian Brown, Brent Orr, Tom Frederick, Steve Jackson, and Curt Sloyer. Michael Smith was absent.

Brian led off with a prayer and delivered a devotional about “How to live a Spirit-led Life” reading from the book of Joel (2:28) and Oswald Chambers. Brian reminded us that the key is to this is to be so united with Christ that the Spirit’s leading flows naturally in our lives versus trying to “work ourselves into a frenzy” seeking the Spirit.

The meeting included the following discussions:

Pastor’s report:

September was a good month at NewSong with plenty of activity and spiritual growth. On Labor Day weekend we had a special service where laypersons talked about how their work matters to God. The next weekend 19 men from NewSong’s men’s group, L.I.G.H.T. (Living In God’s Holy Temple) enjoyed a camping retreat at beautiful Fort Mountain in North Georgia. The topic of the retreat was personal holiness and several men made substantial commitments to the Lord through the course of the weekend. Our women kicked off their new year with a luncheon on Sept. 18^th. They will be having “fireside chats” in several members’ homes over the course of the year. September also saw the resumption of a new season of Mid-Week activities. We are now averaging over 50 adults per night at these events, plus children. The meals, provided by the Archers, are a real hit and proving to be very helpful at facilitating community. A “Praise Celebration” night was held on Sept. 15 and Chris Cauley helped Sandra with the music. Chris blessed us with a special song and we prayed for him as he went out “on the road.” Our “Music and the Arts” at NewSong also kicked off in September. Our sermon series for the month was “Great Families God’s Way” and covered the importance of families, emphasizing keeping our families together.

Our average attendance through the month of September rose by 1 person to 157 for the year. The actual average attendance for the month was 162 and appears to be climbing. We have moved additional chairs into the worship center (we now have 218 in there) but we may still want to consider a second service before long. We continue to have new visitors each week although not as many as Steve would like to see.

Our current membership statistics indicate 60 member families, 104 full members, 80 preparatory members and 61 constituent members for a total of 245. We received one new family into membership in September (Mitchell). We also removed the Rob Porter family from our rolls for inactivity.

Our offerings during September were again below our budgeted monthly goal. Total offerings for the month were $16,146 (our monthly budget calls for $5,280/week, $21,220/month). Our monthly expenses were $19,853 for September. We did pay a partial benevolence ($925) to The Place and are now paying this without fail at the full 10%. For the month we had an operating “loss” of $3,707. YTD income through 9-30-04 is $162,947 and expenses are $195,131 for a YTD “loss” of $32,184. We are approximately $2000 more in the hole since the end of the previous month. Our Fidelity Account (Capital Reserve) stands at $29,898 as of Oct. 16.

Old Business:

Our Director of Student Ministries Jason Lee has taken a job with John Blanquicet working construction and is no longer driving a school bus. Please pray for Rachael and Jason as they expect their first child, go through job changes, etc…

Our Annual Church Conference was discussed and it was agreed that the Elders did not do a very good job relaying information back to our ministry leaders concerning their budgets and how those needed to be amended. We discussed the importance of getting back to the various leaders well before the Church Conference where the budget is ratified. We also agreed we didn’t make it clear the church was “ratifying” the budget we approved and we should have made the process more like a true “vote.”

We also discussed our continuing financial shortfall. We agree that our members are giving well, we just need to keep the need before the congregation so hopefully we can catch up, or at least “stop the bleeding.” No one is in panic mode yet but we do need to keep a close eye on this situation. We will begin publishing our “weekly financial need’ in the newsletter in order to keep this before the congregation. Steve has also asked Mandy to begin sending financial reports for the month just ended to all the Elders prior to our monthly meeting so we all have these figures. They will be in the form of an Excel spreadsheet and will arrive via email.

The church floors still need to be waxed. Steve has had difficulty reaching the people who did it before. Darryl Fitz’s father-in-law does floors and is supposed to be getting us a quote.

Dave reminded everyone of the Harvest Festival and said Karen Retzer was organizing this and that they had met twice now. Please be prepared to help out as needed.

New Business

The possibility of holding two worship services came up again as a new business item. We all agreed to pray about this and Steve will talk to the staff about it. We are getting pretty full at our 10:30 service and we don’t want people to stop coming because the room appears crowded. At the same time, tackling a second service will require a lot of logistical work since we have limited space, musicians, etc…

A related discussion revolved around our crowded space needs. Brent reported that the girls group Shuri leads are meeting in Steve’s office and had 14 in that limited space last Weds. night. Every nook and cranny is filled on Wednesday nights.

Dave also reminded the group about the Elder Prayers on Sunday mornings at 9:50am in Steve’s office. This has been very helpful and we all agreed we need to continue doing it. We also agreed that the Elder of the Month would begin collecting our prayers and sending out a reminder email during the week to remind the Elders to pray for specifics.

One final new business item was Dave suggested we move our monthly Elder meetings to the second Saturday morning of the month at 9am to follow the men’s breakfast. That way the Elders don’t have to take up two Saturday mornings a month. Everyone agreed.

Upcoming Events:

Oct. 24 - Steve will not be preaching that Sunday for personal time apart with his family. Dave Allen has agreed to preach for Steve that day.

Nov. 6 – Harvest Festival

Tom Frederick will do the devotional for next month’s Elder’s meeting.

Brian Brown is the November Elder of the Month.

The next meeting will be held on Saturday, November 13 at 9am at the church office immediately following the Men’s Breakfast.