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MGLC Council Meeting Minutes
September 8, 2005
Members Present: Todd Treml, Steve Hanson, Steve Wagner, Shelly Halverson, Sue Schwedler, Kathy Bruha, Erik Scott, Dave Palm, Laura Winge, and Patty Branch
Members Absent: Mike Eggers, Paul Backer and Geoff Jones
Staff Present: Pastor Durk, Pastor Chris and Melinda Nelson
Dave Palm opened with devotion and prayer about “Being a servant, what’s your story” and “Making a difference”.
President’s Remarks
How are we preparing our congregation for change over the next 12-18 months? How do we prepare people for change? Changes that are in process include: Provisional purpose statement, Organizational structure, Personnel changes, Building (our biggest change), Kairos – feedback from congregation. The average person is not sitting in on the decision-making process and not on a committee – how do they feel about the changes? What are the ways that we can transition our congregation with these changes? Feedback from council – Let people talk – keep looking for ways to touch base and check in, Fireside chats, Neighborhood Shepherding Group Meetings, perhaps council members participate in neighborhood shepherding group meetings. Communication is the KEY – it is everyone’s job and no one’s job.
Communication – Regarding the staff position at 10 hours a week – it is a good idea, but are we being responsible to our budget? It is an important position – is it a cost we can afford? Anything that we communicate to the congregation and the community, this person would oversee. We need to be realistic about the budget. We are forming a communication team to look at how we do that better. We will ask this team and Personnel Team to craft a job description. Shelly motioned that we hire a 10-hour per week communications director using the other 10 hours a week from the already budgeted 25 hours Worship Director position with 15 of those hours going to the Worship Director. Erik seconded the motion. All approved. Pastor Durk will report back after Personnel Committee reviews a job description and then we will proceed.
We passed around thank you cards to be sent to the Steering Committee members in appreciation for their service. Everyone on council signed them.
Pastor Reports
Pastor Durk’s report – He talked about what is the vision that God is calling us to? It is more than about what we need, we want and what we can afford. He also offered detail on Hurricane Katrina, ELCA Church-Wide Assembly, Vacation Time, Youth Transition, Men’s Breakfast and Bible Study, Kairos Ministry Work, September Lions Roar Days Parade, Pig Roast, Open Staff Positions and Pastoral Acts.
Regarding open staff positions he shared that Personnel Committee recommends Ken Turnquist for the position of Worship Coordinator at 15 hours per week and Tanya Peplinski for the Job Share Receptionist position – she and Jeanne will work out a rotation.
Question was raised if the process of posting internally best serves the needs of the congregation. Should we advertise outside of the congregation? Pastor Durk said that we have a Personnel Team that is very knowledgeable including Todd Treml, Bonnie Marten, Sharon Spindler, Bill Zajac, Melinda and Pastor Durk (who both serve ex-officio). It was discussed that with these two positions perhaps it wasn’t necessary to go outside of the congregation, but beneficial to have people who have a feel for the ministry, i.e. Worship Coordinator is more task orientated and keeps it all together and flowing. In the future, each open position will be evaluated to see if it might bring quality candidates by advertising outside of the congregation. The Youth Director position and Communications Director positions were both positions that would benefit from advertising in other places besides our church communications.
Shelly motioned that we hire Ken Turnquist for 15 hours a week as the Worship Coordinator and hire Tanya Peplinski as the part-time job share receptionist with Jeanne Gronholm. Sue seconded the motion, many approved, 1 abstain. Motion carries.
Pastor Chris’s report – She gave a brief wrap up and said it was a good summer. Sarah is great! There were two full tables at the youth meeting and she will be sharing insights into attending an ELCA National Assembly. Her report included the topics of Adult Ministry Team, summer education wrap-up, Befriender Ministry, Support Team, Prayer Ministry, Youth Committee, Outreach, and ELCA Church Wide Assembly.
Leading on Purpose
We reviewed Chapters 5 and 6.
Chapter 5 talked about “Preaching on Purpose” and Pastor Durk shared different preaching styles. He tries to tell the story in his messages – the story of the Bible, the story of the parishioners and his faith story.
Chapter 6 talked about “A Lutheran Reading of the Purpose-Driven Life” We talked about the five purposes of the church: Worship, Evangelism, Discipleship, Fellowship, and Ministry. We also discussed the idea of being offered a challenge from the pulpit.
NOTE: We will not discuss this book at the October meeting, but will complete it in November (Chapters 7 and 8).
3-5 Year Strategic Plan
We had discussed this at a previous meeting, but have decided that we should wait for the Kairos report before we move ahead with this. We need to see what Kairos is putting together, we need to become clear about our structure and our purpose. It is hard to put a strategic plan together without this information first.
Organizational Team
Todd Treml reported that the Org. Team is looking at reshaping council so that it is a more vision-orientated group. Plan – spearheaded by council – could happen sometime in April or May of 2006. The team has added new member Jennifer Hale. They would like to present their plan to council in November. Most of their time now has been spent discussing structure, the goal is to simplify and liberate congregation so they can serve on a lot of teams. It is a more free flowing organizational structure that encourages participation. There would be five committees/ministry areas – underneath each of these areas short team and long-term ministry areas – many of which are already in place today. These are enhancements to what we are already doing. They have reviewed by-laws and will make modification recommendations. We have ten committees today – in the future there will be five. We want to be sure that the purpose statements for each area match the teams.
Question raised – How are we communicating to the congregation what we are doing? After Kairos report, a Purpose/Org. Temple Talk will be give on September 25 – we want to get and we need the congregations feedback.
With every change made we need to offer a “Here is what we heard – here is what we did” approach.
Purpose Team
Steve Hanson reported that they are looking at each ministry areas purpose statement. They want to give it to each area to think about how they meet their purpose. They have also had some discussion about the church’s provisional purpose statement – how to get it out there – tapestry, magnets, etc…They would like to tap into the communications team and/or ask marketing people to help with ideas/implementation.
Round Rabbits
Kathy – Children’s Ministry – Rally Sunday is upon us and teachers are still needed at 9:30 and 11 am. Busy kicking off fall – registrations still coming in.
Erik – Evangelism – Moving full “boar” with lots and lots of help. There is an opportunity to serve. All council people should get a t-shirt with a $6.00 suggested donation. Come help shuck corn – Saturday at 6:30 pm at church.
Sue – Adult Ministry – Sue presented us with a wonderful flow chart of the organizational structure of the Adult Ministry team, which includes 10 different focus areas. Then she presented us with an Adult Ministry Opportunities booklet that tied back into our purpose statement. These will be distributed on Sunday morning.
Patty – Worship, Music and Arts – They will meet on Tuesday – good to have Ken on board. The committee has done a nice job of dividing up the tasks.
Laura – Stewardship – the Time and Talent Gift result forms will be distributed to each ministry area.
Dave – Properties – is very excited to get the time and talent sheets. He and Jim Lann are discussing options for a new sign out front – cost, illuminated, etc…Can we put our name on the building (like MG Covenant did) is that another option? He also has a big list of projects.
Financial Update
Steve reported that the cash balance at the end of August was $146,785 and net YTD is –42,319. From August to July we had a –10,126 difference in our offerings. We are down 20,000 YTD, but this is offset by our expenses, so the net is -$4,857 compared to budget. We are holding a benevolence payment of $4,800 to be sure that we have the funds before we send it.
Steve commented that his perception is that people look at the capital fund as a new building fund, not as a debt service fund – which it is. It is important to keep that before the congregation. For a good explanation of this see Kwen’s report from the annual meeting. Todd and Durk are working on a targeted letter for the capital appeal – thank you if people are on track or over, an encouragement for people who need to catch up. They were encouraged to add a little communication education about the building fund being this building, the land and our future. Attendance is holding steady.
New Business/Old Business
Steering committee will be in next month. Executive Committee has looked at preliminary numbers from Gunderson. We may call a special meeting before the regularly scheduled meeting in October to discuss this.
Approval of August Minutes
Motion to approve minutes made by Steve Hanson, seconded by Steve Wagner – all approved.
Meeting adjourned at 9:00 pm with the Lord’s Prayer.
Respectfully submitted,
Shelly Halverson
Next Council Meeting: Thursday, October 13, 2005, 7:00 – 9:00 pm, MGLC
Devotion/Prayer to be lead by: Geoff Jones