Ministry Council
May 23, 2005
Present: Rev. Janet Forbes, Chris Wilterdink, Ken Fong, Lynda Fickling, Dave
Fornof, Cheryl Wolfe, Jenita Rhodes, Pam Rowley, Marie Fornof
Meeting opening:
Ken opened the meeting in prayer at 7:00 PM.
Reports:
Finance- No report
SPRC- No report
Evangelism Team- They have identified their next task as working on ways to
increase involvement in the men’s group. Feedback on what was successful to the
Home Improvement Group will help. Lynda is also working on ways to improve the
friendship (AKA membership) pads, on getting more greeters for Sunday, different
nametags. She would like to have more welcome team greeters and the ET will look
at how to help with this process.
Pastor/Staff Relations Report: Auditions for Fiddler on the Roof went well.
There will be 110 cast members total, not including the band. The staff retreat
was held the past Tuesday and discussion centered on a devotional life, becoming
a community, and adding the word “spiritual” to our IRM. The calendar for the
next year was also set. The calendar with dates will be brought to the next
Ministry Council Meeting.
Staff has also started to visit other churches in the Highlands Ranch area.
This has already occurred at St. Andrews. There will be a team lead by Lynda to
Cherry Hills on June 12th.
Pam may be licensed as a local pastor by mid- June. Membership currently
stands at 1,317 and we have 388 constituents.
Worship Team: A schedule for events will be in the Chronicle. The new acolyte
chair will be Kyle Exline. Women of Note recently performed at the Large Church
Initiative and were very well received. The feedback from the ministry council
is that the sound team is doing a good job. Janet expressed special appreciation
of what they have done to illustrate her sermons. Janet also said that the
sermons would soon be available on the web by the Sunday they are given.
Missions Team: Is now on hiatus until their August meeting. Will be doing a
project to collect backpacks and school supplies this summer. The Women of St.
Luke’s also want to do a similar project. Marie will let the Mission Team
leaders know to contact Christy Walberger. Janet will plan a blessing of the
backpacks (for both our youth and the ones collected for donation) at an
appropriate time this summer.
Operations: There have been recent problems with security due to not having
the front door locked. The trustees will be rekeying the doors and doing a
distribution of the new keys in the near future. Steps will be taken if doors
are not locked when groups are finished with activities including possible loss
of the key privileges. There is also discussion of having a camera to monitor
the front entrance.
A request has been received from Littleton Hospital to use 240 parking spaces
in our lot on Monday through Friday. This would be from June through September
due to construction at the Hospital. Discussion followed and the council decided
that we did not have enough information at this time to approve or disapprove
the request. Ken will ask Littleton for the needed information and report back
to the council in June.
Fellowship & Support: They are considering having a picnic this summer after
one of the Sunday services are concluded.
Ministry Development: No report.
Education: Jenita outlined the summer program for Sunday School. It will be
based on a program to educate the children on both the Methodist Church and who
John Wesley was using a format that includes diving the children into “tribes”
with a “tribal leader” for each one. Various activities will be done. She is
also focusing on an intergenerational theme for the months of July and August. A
family movie night is being planed for the last Friday in August. She is also
asking Home Improvements to help with a picnic for the event.
Chris has a busy summer. In addition to both the youth group missions there
are 2 new small groups starting. One is a senior high program that will study
comparative religions. It will start with various Christian religions for the
first ½ of the summer. The last ½ will study other world religions.
The second program consists of a gender based mentoring program for those in
7th through 12th grade. There will be one for girls entitled GEMS (Girls
Enrichment Ministries), which will be led by the new part time youth director,
Ann Smith. The boys’ counterpart is entitled STM (Shortcuts to Manhood) and will
be led by Chris. Both will help educate the youth in areas of values,
gender-specific issues, and increased self worth. Activities will be used that
both aid in development of trust and encourage the youth to push their
boundaries.
The SLY PM group goal set forth by Chris is one of developing fellowship and
breaking down some barriers that have become a part of the group dynamics over
the past few years.
Adult education is doing a survey of needs and areas of interest of our
members and constituents. This will be used in planning the fall programs that
will begin in Sept. Janet and Julie will be collating the surveys for the
council and present them at a later meeting.
New Business:
The remainder of the meeting was devoted to the topic of Appreciative Inquiry
Status:
A consultant to head the necessary change in the church has been hired. Dr.
John Lee is a pastoral psychologist who owns a company known as “Thinking
Unlimited”. (See the attachment for more information.) Janet outlined the basic
process. It will first consist of a training session for interviewers. Potential
dates were discussed for this: July 31st, 9 AM- 12 N and then a mid week session
one evening from 6 PM- 9 PM. Janet will find out which ones proposed work for
Dr. Lee and let us know at the next meeting.
The next step will be for those trainers to do interviews during the months
of August and early September at several Sunday sessions. A large church
conference will then be held at the end of September. We have tentatively
identified September 25th for this if Dr. Lee is available. Lunch will be
provided after the 11 AM service and then the conference will be held.
Based on the interviews, several themes (usually 6-8) will emerge. The
conference is used to select 3-4 as priorities and to appoint task groups to
work on them. Dr. Lee will then work with these groups to create the necessary
changes to reach the priority items.
The entire fee for Dr. Lee was felt to be very reasonable by those present
for the council meeting. At $4,000 it is an inclusive fee. The church staff will
begin the process to select candidates for the training to do the interviews.
Other Business:
Pam discussed a 9News item. The newscast is looking for 5 churches in the
Denver Metro area to host food drops the week of June 13th from 6 AM – 7 AM.
Greg Moss, from 9News would broadcast from the churches selected during that
time spot. As this would be a good way to get free advertising for the church,
the council approved applying to be one of the churches. Several members of the
council met after the meeting was adjourned and drafted the required e-mail to
send to 9News and apply for this.
Adjournment;
There being no further business, the meeting adjourned with prayer led by
Janet at 9 PM.
Next Meeting: Monday, June 27, 2005 at 7 PM.
Respectfully Submitted,
Marie Fornof
