NewSong Board of
Elders
Minutes of December
9, 2007 Meeting
The NewSong Board of Elders met for the final time in 2007 on Sunday
afternoon, December 9, 2007 from 4:00 to 6:00pm at the Church. Elders present
included Brian Brown, Jerry Cauley, Ed Densmore, Vicki Eitel, Brent Orr, and
Steve Jackson. Linda Blanchard was absent.
The meeting began with prayer followed by Pastor Steve asking if there
were any questions about the Pastor’s Report which was emailed earlier to the
Board. There were none. The following are highlights from that report.
Pastor’s Report –
December 9, 2007
As the year winds down at NewSong
I believe we’re positioned to really accomplish great things for God in 2008.
Our new mission statement, along with our renewed focus and passion should
carry us into the New Year with strong momentum. As for November itself, it was
a good month. In addition to our regular activities during the month, our youth
went on a retreat to Toccoa the first weekend of the month. We also held a
service of healing and prayer (11/8), and a membership class (11/13) with seven
in attendance. The Bennett’s had a get together at their home on the 4th and
invited everyone involved in Sunday School. Some of our groups and ministries
held their “orientation” meeting during the month as well (e.g. Outreach on
Nov. 11). On the 18th
Other Items
Our Average YTD worship attendance rose by one person to 138. Attendance for the four Sundays was 166, 158, 130, and 142 (monthly
average 149).
Current membership statistics as of the end of November reflect the addition of two families, the Imhoffs and the Taylors, who joined on Nov. 25th. Counting them we now have 56 member families, 98 full members, 45 preparatory members and 77 constituent members for a total of 221.
Financially speaking, revenues for the month were $19,756 and expenses were $19,277 with income exceeding expenses
by $529 for the month. Our YTD
numbers through the end of November are revenues of $242,316 and expenses of $215,407
with revenues exceeding expenses by $26,909.
The balance in our Fidelity reserve account as of the end of November was $42,197. We continue
to deposit $430.76 a week in the Fidelity account to cover the children’s
director and worship leader salaries.
UPCOMING AND ONGOING
I will be offering a Membership Orientation Class on Wednesday evening, Dec. 12th. I’ve invited all our current prospects and will explain the NewSong mission, talk about our beliefs, traditions, history and theology as a church, as well as answer any questions newcomers to our church may have. The group will then be invited to join the church.
LOVE AREA
As for my preaching I am preaching an Advent/Christmas series called “Love Came Down at Christmas” during December. Vicki Eitel is speaking on the 30th of December. The emphasis throughout the season will be on the first of the three initiatives of our new mission statement, “Love God.” I also plan to speak on love in January most likely.
GROW AREA
Sunday School is slowing down and will end on Dec. 16th.
We’ll start back again in January.
Sunday Night Bible Study is also drawing to a close for the fall
season. We finish up the Book of Hebrews on Dec. 9th.
Our Women’s Group continues their Beth Moore study called Living Free. The study is led by
Our women also continue to hold their
“Women’s Coffee and Prayer meeting” the first Saturday morning of every month
at 8:30am at the church.
Our Men’s Group is engaged in a study called Faith and Facts which is basically an apologetics study where the men learn to defend their faith and to clarify beliefs. The group is led by John Krauss and meets on Thursday nights at 7pm. They average about 6-8 men a week.
Our Men’s ministry also holds a monthly breakfast the third Saturday of every month held in the KidZone room. The men are NOT meeting for the monthly breakfast in December.
Small Groups/Home Groups had a good sign-up in the ministry campaign. I’d like to see us do some kind of training/launch/campaign in the first quarter of 2008 for small groups which we definitely see as a large component of the “Grow” piece of our mission.
SHARE
Outreach Ministry Group - B.J. Fisher held his outreach orientation
meeting on Sunday afternoon, Nov. 11th and had about 8 folks there. The
group discussed ideas in general and decided to definitely do a
Operation Christmas Child – Kicked off November 4th and
closed out the 25th and was a huge success this year. The OCC
mission team went to the OCC warehouse in
Local Outreach Planned – BJ and Dawn Kirkland held a local outreach to help Saturday, December 8th. Four different teams went to individual homes to do clean up and maintenance.
CHILDREN AND YOUTH
Our youth continue meeting on Sunday nights at 6pm. They went on a retreat the first weekend of November. Attendance at youth has remained steady at about 15-20 a week, heavy on the middle-schooler side. The youth also go on a monthly outreach to disadvantaged youth called “Kid-Zone Outreach” on the first Saturday morning of each month. They also have a “Super Sunday” once a month where they spend the whole day together after church going on outings, watching movies, playing games, etc…
Drew Grubbs has called me and we are going to try to arrange a meeting before the end of the year to discuss a change where Kevin Sanders will probably be leaving us. Drew has a married couple who are graduating from college soon in mind he wants us to consider bringing in.
Our children’s programs for now include Sunday School on Sunday
mornings at 9am taught by Greg Citta and
The children will be doing a brief presentation in the service on Dec. 23rd where they will read the Christmas story and act out a bit of it. Should be cute.
After there were no questions about the Pastor’s Report the Board addressed
the following old business:
Old Business:
Revisit our “Big Rocks”
discussion points
The 4 Big Rocks are the major things we feel we need to be addressed in
the year ahead by the Elders at NewSong. These Big Rocks are all directly
related to our new mission to “Love, Grow
and Share.”
1. FACILITIES – “Do
we feel we can “love, grow and share” as God is calling us to do in our current
facility?” We feel we are crowded and that our crowdedness may be keeping
new people away and/or driving existing ones off. Two solutions are to start a second service,
or to relocate. Pastor Steve commented he thought we had more or less tabled
the two service idea indefinitely. Brian Brown (and others) disagreed however and
felt we need to move immediately to investigate the two-service idea. Brian and
Vicki Eitel agreed to work together to investigate the possibility, logistics,
and timing of starting a second service.
2. STAFFING – “Do we
feel we can “love, grow and share” as God is calling us to do with our current
staff?” The Board had previously ranked
our needs in the following order: Associate Pastor, Worship Leader, Children’s
Leader, and Youth Leader. Pastor Steve advised that Drew Grubbs told him at a
meeting on Dec. 6 that Kevin Sanders had definitely taken another position and would
be leaving us at the end of the year. That immediately reshuffled our staffing
priorities to make the Youth Leader position our number one priority. Pastor
Steve suggested since we have three parents of active youth on the Board (Brian,
Ed, and Brent) that that group might consider putting together a team to look
into what we need to do. Brian Brown agreed to head this team and to call on other
church members to assist including some of the active parents of youth (JC
Citta, Allison Densmore, Rene Ellington). Drew Grubbs and Youth Outreach United
have a couple who are potential candidates for the position. The team will consider
those candidates, and continuing our relationship with Y.O.U. as they decide what
we need to do.
3. ASSIMILATION – Can
we “love, grow and share” as God is calling us to do with our current patterns
of assimilation?” We consider this to be a glaring weakness right now at
NewSong. The big question is “How does someone move from visiting NewSong once
to finding their place among us, feeling at home, growing to be like Jesus, and
sharing God’s love through ministry in and through the church?” The crucial
issue is what we call “hand-offs.” We don’t know whether the answer to this
need is additional staffing, or ministry realignment (see below). We agree this
is a continuing problem and we discussed a “Ministry Matrix” that Vicki Eitel
has worked on as a vehicle to clarify and monitor the hand-offs.
4. MINISTRY ALIGNMENT – “Do
we feel we can “love, grow and share” as God is calling us to do with our
current ministry groups and structure at NewSong?” Concerns here involved
potential “ministry blind spots,” or having so much going on that we overwhelm
our members with “busyness,” and making certain we are doing all that God has
in mind for us to be doing and not getting into ruts of doing what we think we
should be doing as a church (traditionally or otherwise) and then asking God to
bless it. To address this we agreed to do
a ministry audit where we align everything under the categories of love, grow
and share and then search to see if any of the problems mentioned above exist. Vicki Eitel made a start on this with the
Ministry Matrix she worked up. We will continue to tweak this.
New Business:
Linda Blanchard’s suggestions
– issue of possible confusion or disunity concerning the role and function of the
Elders.
Three suggestions were brought to Linda Blanchard since the last meeting.
#1 – Hold a new membership luncheon once a month or quarter to meet with the Elders/Pastor
after a Sunday church service. #2 – Assign an Elder to a small group of people;
that Elder would be responsible to call/send cards to those in their group if they
miss a Sunday service; have the people let the Elder know of any prayer requests,
etc… #3 – Possibly put in the newsletter what the role of an Elder is.
The Elders addressed each issue. #1, we agreed we are more than willing to
do this as long as someone (possibly the person who suggested it) will agree to
prepare and clean up the luncheon. #2, The Elders tried this a few years ago and
it did not work, mainly because some Elders have the gifts to do this and others
don’t. The result was excellent care for some groups while others didn’t even know
who their Elder was. We don’t feel like this would work at this time. #3, The
Elders do not see the need to do this since we have had two Elder elections in the
past year where the job description of an Elder was mailed to each member family.
In addition, this information is on our website in two places.
Given the nature of these suggestions Pastor Steve thinks they indicate dissatisfaction
with the Elders as a body. Steve also said he felt he knew who the person was who
expressed this dissatisfaction because the person had expressed similar comments
to him. In an attempt to stop this from becoming a divisive issue, Steve suggested
the BOE meet with this individual in person. The Board agreed. Steve went to the
person and he has agreed to meet with the Board as well. This meeting will be held
in early January.
Youth Outreach United: Kevin
Sanders leaving NewSong
This discussion was addressed during our discussion of Big Rock #2, staffing
(see above).
Pastor’s role and Elders’ role
Pastor Steve said he and Vicki Eitel had a discussion since the last BOE meeting
and they felt we need to clarify the work load and responsibilities of the Senior
Pastor and the Elders. Steve said that he felt like we often have great ideas
in our Elders meetings, but as the meetings end the “to-dos” for that decision
fell almost entirely on him. This was causing Steve to become a bottleneck because
he felt he can’t possibly do it all. Besides, some of what is suggested and
agreed upon as a course of action does not fit his spiritual gifting. Steve
asked the BOE if they would help with this problem. He said, basically, “I
would like to Feed and Lead, and I’d like you (the Board) or some other group
within the church to take on the responsibility of doing what is necessary to
tackle an issue.”
Vicki then spoke up and said she felt like we needed to clarify if the
BOE is more of a Board of Directors where Steve simply reports what he is doing
to them for their “okay,” or is the Board a “working body” who is supposed to
actually help Steve get the work done in the church (either by doing it
themselves, or by delegating the tasks). Vicki mentioned that Steve has mentioned he
may pursue ministry in
As a result of this conversation the Board agreed Steve should delegate
more. That resulted in two of the major issues before us now: a second worship
service and replacing our Youth Pastor, being delegated immediately. The Board
agreed to try to do more of this, and Steve agreed to delegate more.
Do we want to do a new
directory in early 2008?
This was not addressed in the meeting but there will be a follow-up Elder
conversation via email.
Do BOE meeting dates and times
work well? 2nd Sunday afternoon of the month at 4pm?
We agreed that these are good times for us to meet. That means our
meetings for 2008 are scheduled for:
January 13
February 10
March 9
April 13
May 4 (moved to first Sunday due to Mother’s Day)
June 8
July 13
August 10
September 14
October 12 (Annual Meeting same day)
November 9
December 14
The final item of new business
was to set the Elder of the Month rotation for 2008.
We agreed to continue the rotation alphabetically by last name.
January – Jerry Cauley
February – Ed Densmore
March – Vicki Eitel
April – Brent Orr
May – Linda Blanchard
June – Brian Brown
July – Jerry Cauley
August – Ed Densmore
September – Vicki Eitel
October – Brent Orr
November – Linda Blanchard
December – Brian Brown
Having run out of time (due to the evening events starting at 6:00pm) the
meeting closed in haste with a brief prayer.
Elder of the Month for January – Jerry Cauley
Next Meeting Date – Sunday, January 13th 4pm
at the church.
Closing Prayer