Board Meeting days are usually my longest days of the month. Of course it is senseless to complain since each of our leaders are also providing a couple hours (or more) of their own time and effort away from their own families AFTER they each have worked an entire day themselves. Yet not a single one of them ever provide a glimmer of complaint or hardship - each demonstrating great grace, love and support for me and for one another.
Tonight we dealt with no fewer than a dozen different items of business. My role of pastor also includes chairing these monthly leadership gatherings. I do my best to think through our agendas ahead of time, providing our board members not only with an orderly docket, but also with motions written out except for key variables that can be filled in by our decision makers. I run the meeting with a nod toward Robert's Rules of Order while also providing room for natural conversation. My aim is to keep us focused on our agreed upon goals, while also providing for fellowship and good will.
Consequently tonight we dealt with a dozen different items of business for Church Requel. While not all of our meetings are always unanimous in every issue, tonight's decisions were all unanimous. Here are some of the decisions we made tonight:
- We approved our sermon series for this fall. After we finish our Philippians series in a couple weeks, we'll begin the Modern Parables series. We agreed to purchase six short films from ModernParable.com and use these short movies to supplement the sermons in six evening services at Church Requel the last Sunday of September and every week in October.
- We also decided to conduct a Belong sermon series for six weeks in November and December. We plan to conclude this series with our first new members to join Church Requel on December 12th. I am particularly excited about this - I'm looking forward to belonging!
- To prepare for the Belong sermon series, we decided to meet together in two weeks for a special board meeting to focus on the issues of baptism and to begin writing our core values statement.
- We made some decisions that impact me personally as the pastor. Sadly, because our finances are so tight right now, we cannot afford to send me to seminary this fall quarter. We'll look at it again for the Winter quarter. I could feel the collective disappointment of our leadership team with this hard choice. I want to continue my education and I know our church wants to support this educational direction.
- We also approved a week's vacation for me in October. I'm really feeling the need for this - I haven't taken any vacation time yet this year. I've noticed lately how tough it is for me to keep up the creative work week in and week out.
- We finalized the music ministry requirements for people who desire to serve as worship leaders within our church.
- We decided to hold a Pot Luck dinner before our evening service on October 24th.
- We also decided to support our local Child Evangelism Fellowship in their COINS 4 KIDS fund raising efforts beginning September 26th. I was particularly proud of our leadership tonight as they saw this as an opportunity to be a small part of God's Kingdom in our local community. I know Dale Baer, director of CEF, from our monthly brown bag lunches with other evangelical pastors. It will be a joy to be supportive of him as he and other local pastors have been so supportive of me and Church Requel.
There were other things we dealt tonight, but those were the big items. If you happen to see Steve Thoman, Mark Shaw, Jonathan Pierce or Shaun Jourdan, let them know how much you really appreciate their leadership efforts on behalf of Church Requel.
