Church Conference-May 17

[Pastor Dave]

There will be a special church conference on May 17th immediately following the worship service. The business will be the adjustment of the pastor's salary and any issues that arise from the need to adjust the salary. The Rev Dennis Alexander will be the presiding elder. Everyone is invited to attend. Only professing (full) members are allowed to vote. There will be a time for questions and answers.

Any questions please contact the church office.

Blessings,

Pastor Dave

[Jim Parry]

1. What was the church plan for each of the last four years? What we're the benchmarks and how well did the paid staff meet them? Where are the documents that support these plans and the results or lack thereof?

2. Where are we as a church now?

3. Where do we strive to be as a church (business) in one, two, three, four years? Who has developed and written these plans? What are the staffing requirements for each set of benchmarks? Who is responsible if these benchmarks are not met?

4. Once we have a set of clear goals and an understanding of the investments of time and money that will be required to meet these goals, then the SPRC should review and support a salary plan for a paid staff to meet the agreed upon goals. These plans should be reviewed by the various other committees and signed off on.

5. The congregation should then be assembled, the plans explained in clear and concise terms and the recommended plan discussed and recommended.

6. The congregation has to "buy in" and pledge the $$$ to support whatever plan finally agreed to. After this is done, in my opinion, every Committee should develop and communicate their individual plans to meet the overall goals of the entire Church body.


What do we get (new goals met) with a 1/2 time minister and the remaining paid staff?

What do we get (new goals met) with a 2/3 time minister....3/4 time.

Why don't we meet to worship only once or twice a month, the other times could be used for Prayer Services, Study Services, Fellowship Services, Service oriented Services and led by various Chairs, and or members.

I'm convinced that a rounded Christian must perform the following all the time: Prayer, Study, Worship, Fellowship, and Service. The time the minister could "save" by not preparing weekly messages could be reallocated to visitation, membership maintenance, membership growth, Community Relations development.

Doesn't the conference have reams of already developed programs for Prayer, Study, Fellowship and Service oriented Services?

A conference developed plan which we have now is not complete and measurable; it is just a series of words, words, and words. The plan was developed after they met with each other in their coffee sessions, not with those who had to implement, financially support, and measure, and communicate the results.

They (those planners) initially came up with Yoking with Faith UMC and then left us in the dark only to change their minds after 59 of 60 of our members voted to do it, now they have this new plan, frankly I'M HAVING DIFFICULTY TRUSTING THEM A SECOND TIME.

You folks will do it your way, that is obvious, and that is how you evidently see it. I'll just wait, watch and probably whine a bit on my way out.

[Russ Simmons]

I am not a member of this church, yet, so I will not have a vote next Sunday. The following Sunday, Shannon and I intend to join this church. Over the past seven years, we've visited quite a few different churches of different denominations and for the past few years we've realized that yours is the most genuine and real to us.

I've been a United Methodist all my life. My youth was bound up in a very active United Methodist Youth Fellowship which was only active because they had a pastor with a vision and the stamina to see it through. In my humble opinion, one can't put a price tag on that, or ask for half a cup of vision or three-quarters a cuppa stamina. Being a pastor has to be a calling because it's a hard, hard job. The benchmarks I would see are these -- are new people joining the church, are the people attending feeling like they are getting something meaningful from the service that they can apply to their lives, and are others in the church who cannot attend being ministered to (by anyone in the church, not just the pastor).

Shannon and I represent the first benchmark. We hope to help fulfill Pastor Dave's vision of 20 new members. We will do whatever we can to lead in that direction. We feel "rather stretched" raising our first 2 year old (entering her "terrible two's") and job schedules which leave us seeing one another only 10 minutes a day some days, but having successfully moved out of a bad apartment and bought a foreclosed house just off Southview and being happy there aren't that many mad fixes still on the list of to-do's. We remain commited to this and we will help in whatever small way we can. Like Charlotte said to Wilbur the pig in "Charlotte's Web (paraphrasing Julia Roberts in the recent movie), "I don't know how I'm going to help you, but winter's a long way off and I made a promise -- and I never break a promise."

With all due respect, I do not care for churches that are run like businesses. They are too stale, too spiritually empty. Business is business, and it is a cruel game of outsourcing, offshoring, back-stabbing and greed. It's core is the love of money. I cannot see the church having any other core than what was preached today. "Greater love hath no man than this, that he be willing to give up his life for a friend.... Behold, I call you my friends." A church which is a "going concern" is not as interested in money as it is in what money it needs to do what it feels compelled to do spiritually to meet its mission, if it has one.

Well, that's my opinion as a non-member looking in. I'm excited and happy that my wife Shannon and I may soon, with your blessing, be and do more than that. I would ask our daughter Darci to sign over proxy voting rights but believe she should be at least able to sign or write her name before doing so (that's a joke, as Darci was baptised in this church and preceeds us in membership).

Let's all pray about what we want this church to do and be and what resources we need to give, raise, share or somehow fulfill to meet those goals. Let's set the benchmarks for ourselves and see how well we meet them.

Russ Simmons

[Shannon Simmons]

I come to church, to hear music that inspires me, and to hear the word of the lord from a person who is well versed in it. I don't want to attend a service where some people who read the bible sometimes, then go on with the rest of their lives expound on what the faith means to them. I mean that's what we have bible study for right? Those that want to be armchair quarterbacks, go ahead and join the bible study group.

I have limited time available for going to church, because my work schedule doesn't allow for it, unless you want to all listen to me snoring in church like every other Sunday. I like being able to go when I want to and know that I am going to hear something that will move me. I'm sorry if some people think that my fellow parishioners think they can do without, but I have to whole heartedly disagree. We are a mission not a business.

I like what Peter Buffett had to say in a blog once, http://blogs.myspace.com/peterbuffett (popdose interview). “Every NGO and foundation should want to go out of business as quickly as they can, right? Obviously, there are big problems out there in the world that take time to address, but shouldn’t the idea be that you identify a problem, solve that problem as fast as possible, and put yourself out of business?

He goes on to say "“Instead of that, if you look at the mentality of both giving and getting at these organizations, a lot of times they devolve into the people inside them trying to maintain their job security or the foundation’s institutional security. And they wind up doing a lot of things that aren’t focused on their core missions. It’s understandable — nobody wants to put himself out of work – but it’s an awkward fact of life at a lot of organizations.”

Although it is good to be penny wise, lets not be pound foolish. Lets not forget the real reason we have a church and that is to have a place to all worship together. A good leader with an upbeat energy can help direct, people towards groups that interest them where they can make a difference. I always get questions from my girlfriends in India about what they can do to help the poor there, and I tell them to go to their temples they must have some program where by they can volunteer, or just to look around them in their neighborhoods and see who they can help out.

As Darci gets older I will look forward to being able to participate more in things, and I want to personally thank everyone who is so devoted to doing the church's mission while I cannot.