Ministry Council
August 23, 2003

Present: Janet Forbes, Ken Fong, Lynda Fickling, Cheryl Wolff, Marie & David Fornof, Jenita Rhodes, Elizabeth Laurvick, Ralph Lawrence, Martha Boon, Mark Speedy, Dale & Kathy Balu

Martha opened with a poem.

Finance Report- Martha distributed a Finance Report John Merchant had provided.

Evangelism Team- Ken Fong reported on this team’s recent activities.

Developing two teams – Calling team- calls after a first visit to Worship

Visiting team- visits after 3-5 visits

New Parking signs for Visitors

Kits for Visitors- A bag with bread, card asking how you decided to come

Tote bags for home visits- CD, brochure

Updating the CD

Guest Services Center- in the entry, greet people, give directions, and point toward information areas

Nametag usage- printing nametags Sunday mornings

Invitation cards- these have been refined and Ken asked everyone for feedback on the instruction sheet for their use. These will be given to all members to use to invite others to worship. Ken asked for approval to spend $2000 of Evangelism’s budgeted funds to print the cards and to pay for the tote bags. The motion was seconded by Cheryl and passed unanimously.

Stewardship Report- Mark Speedy gave us a detailed report on Stewardship’s Campaign plans. “Moving Towards Consecration Sunday”

1. Campaign Strategy

Main theme is Share the Abundance

Focus will be on educating the congregation in the importance of the spiritual discipline of giving.

Consecration Sunday, Oct. 24- a memorable celebration

2. Bringing the leaders together to be involved

Leadership Dinner- Oct. 5

Leaders will be asked to call all that do not RSVP to Consecration Sunday,

to invite them to come.that day for the celebration.

Mark reported that they would like to have one service at another location, but have not been able to identify an affordable spot. He asked for feedback from this group.

Comments and suggestions:

Service here, brunch at a different location

Some concern expressed that we would lose a lot of people

Hold three services but serve breakfast here.

Hard to have people in the narthex really feel apart of the service, therefore 3 services might be better

Ministry Team Reports

Operations

Ken reported that Yvonne Amrine is stepping down as Communications Chair

September 25 is the next Work Day and is co-sponsored by the Choir.

Weeding will be a major part of the morning. It was suggested that during the summer we have a weeding day once a month.

Worship

Cheryl reported that this team had a Christmas in July meeting, July 27. They accomplished a lot and Cheryl hopes to have quarterly meetings for this team. The adult Bell Choir is up and running. The Acolytes met Sunday and trained 7 new acolytes. Children’s Ed is working on Worship bags for children to use during worship.

Education

Adult Education has been working on their Mission & procedures. Dale & Jenita reported that they are also working on a brochure with all the classes available. There are plans for 5 disciple classes and training for 4 disciple leaders. WNL will offer Disciple classes, a Discernment class and a drop in class for adults. The initial suggestion was that this class be "Hot Topics” with the pastors, but this may not be feasible. It was expressed that some sort of drop in adult class was important to offer on Wed. evenings. Another possibility, Dale mentioned is a class using the Cokesbury Internet Link that provides discussion material. Elizabeth Bauer is looking into this.

Adult Ed plans to do a survey to see if people are interested in age group classes or topic classes and what topics are of interest.

Children’s Education

Jenita informed everyone that Child Care will be available this fall on Tues, Wed., Thurs and Sun evenings and Sat mornings with a reservation. She is also still recruiting for 11 o’clock children’s SS. She is trying to recruit folks that are not parents. WNL live will offer, in addition to all the Children’s Music opportunities,-a family class on Nutrition.

Missions

Marie reported on Joseph Chan’s visit this past week. Joseph met with the Missions committee to let them know of the Community Center’s needs in Seim Reip. They need to supplement the 2 employee’s salaries that currently work teaching at the center. Looking at $25 a month per employee. They also need to provide training, which will be approximately $1125 per person. Marie also reported that they have 22 Scholarship students. Other Mission activities include the Crop walk in October; Missions will meet next week.

Fellowship & Support

Churchwide met on Sunday and have a good start in planning the Kick Off meal. This will be a sack lunch that you pick up at a Ministry Fair table. They are looking into planning the all church hayride for Oct. 3 or 10.

Ministry Development

Martha reported on plans for the Ministry Fair, scheduled for Sept. 12. A letter has gone out to all small group leaders asking them to participate. Advocates were asked to follow this up with a verbal invite. The Fair will be set up around the perimeter of the Fellowship Hall; one service is scheduled for 10am on Sept. 12. There will be incentives to visit the Ministry fair tables.

Staff Report

Lynda- Membership, 1316 after new member this month.

Janet reported that the Church Conference will be Mon, Nov. 22.

We are asking that Groups turn in their budgets by Sept. 20. An email will be sent that details instructions and has a form. We will be asking groups to turn in Conservative Requests. Dreaming and visioning will come in Jan or February. We will be asking groups to turn in budgets similar to 2004 unless they were short funds for their ministry. And then increased requests would be expected. Advocates watch for an email to send on to your small groups.

Janet closed our meeting in prayer.

Next meeting, is September 27, 2004.

Respectfully submitted,

Martha Boon