Prince of Peace

COUNCIL MINUTES MAY 2018

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Prince of Peace Lutheran Church

Council Meeting Minutes

May 15, 2018

Present: Pastor Chad Brekke, Pastor Natalia Terfa, Allan Grant, Patti Amstrup, Joel Odens, Jodi Spoden, Linda Forkey, Melissa Johnson, Julia Sevald

Absent: Lynn Anderson, Jeff Hanson, Cole Antilla

Call to Order: President Allan Grant called the meeting to order.

Opening Prayer: Pastor Natalia led us in an opening blessing.

Adoption of Agenda: A motion was made by Linda Forkey and seconded by Patti Amstrup to adopt the Council agenda.  Motion approved.

Approval of Previous Minutes: A motion was made by Jodi Spoden and seconded by Joel Odens to approve the minutes from the February 20, 2018 Council meeting as written.  Motion approved.

Reports of Officers:

Treasurer’s Report:

Notable April activity:

  • For the month of April, receipts were higher than expenses.
    • The general/building fund activity for the month was a gain of $5,487. This is favorable to budget by $4,642 but unfavorable to prior year by $1,773.
    • Total April offerings were basically flat to budget but lower than last year by $7,165.
    • Overall, expenses are favorable to both budget and prior year for the month.   The favorability to budget is mainly related to timing of personnel expenses and a lower mortgage payment.
  • For April year to date, receipts are lower than expenses, resulting in a YTD loss of $26,283. This is unfavorable to budget and prior year by $6,441 and $27,176, respectively.
    • Giving throughout the first four months of 2018 is down from last year and expenses are up, mainly related to the purchase of a new AED machine and HVAC/roof repairs as well as timing of medical insurance payments
  • The general fund cash balance available for use at the end of April is a deficit balance of $2,195 which means we are effectively borrowing from the designated funds to cover normal operating expenses.
  • The only designated fund with significant activity in April was the Camp Wapo Plant Sale fund.

The executive team is reviewing and discussing options to help support and strengthen the financial position of the church.

President’s Report:

None

 

Vice-President’s Report:

  • The Leave a Legacy team met and approved a MeVo Streaming Camera that Nate had requested. The purpose was to improve the quality of our streaming of worship services and anything we may wish to stream/share. The new camera is superior to what we currently have and the sound can be piped in from our board console. The dollar amount requested was $ 800. The council then voted to approve this via an email vote. It was unanimously approved.

Secretary’s Report

None

Ministry Team Reports

Property Report

Completed Projects

  • New LED lighting installed in the kitchen. Payback in 1.04 years.
  • Church grounds were cleaned by the Boy Scout Troop 542.
  • Current Projects
  • Working with the Sunday Morning Experience ministry team on an emergency/disaster plan.
  • Locating emergency shelters and fire equipment within the church for an emergency
  • evacuation plan.
  • Working on membership cards that will capture areas of volunteers’ interest to the church.
  • Roof leak and skylight repairs – Bill Fredrick is working with Insurance Company and Finance
  • Received proposal for LED lighting on all 4-ft. T8 lights (205 fixtures) Payback 1.83 years if a daycare were in place. Could be a Leave a Legacy capital expense
  • Next 12 Months (This year)
  • Roof bubbling
  • Tree in courtyard
  • Tuck point building
  • Clean holding pond south side
  • Short Term (5 Years)
  • Security lights
  • Computer-operated lighting
  • LED lighting out side of building
  • Fire alarm panel
  • West metal door separating
  • South metal door not closing
  • Long Term (10 Years)
  • Parking lot
  • Carpet replacement
  • Replace boiler systemSpiritual Growth 
  • Sunday Morning Experience
  • None
  • Emergency Response Plan: Dale will talk to Bill from the property management team to see if that committee could take on this item.
  • Head Usher: We are still trying to think of new or other possible candidates.
  • Dale might attend the New Member class on May 20th.
  • The Sunday wrap-up on 6th was good. Kim hosted this with Joel and George helping.
  • SME Social Event: The Volunteer Appreciation Event will be on June 10th. We will create and send out invites. We will serve cake and coffee after the church service. More planning and details still to be worked on.
  • Next meeting Tuesday June 5th at 6pm.

Outreach

Upcoming Events

NE Mpls Food Shelf Volunteers – Tuesday, May 15

  • Deb and Mike Felien volunteering
  • Pastor friend of Natalia’s from NE Minneapolis needs some help staffing their food shelf. Volunteers check people in; brief training needed

Spring Jeans and Junk Hwy 81 Clean-up – Sunday, May 20

  • Sue LaGue, project chair
  • Volunteers needed after each service
  • More help needed. Brent is recruiting youth. Jodi will send email out to past volunteers

Brooklyn Avenues Graduation Party – Saturday, June 2

  • Lynn Anderson and Jodi Spoden, co-chairs
  • POP and Avenues staff hosting high school graduation party for 2 youth residents
  • Party will be held at Brooklyn Avenues
  • Planning meeting scheduled at 1:00 Thursday, May 17 at Brooklyn Avenues
  • Lynn securing donation from the Rotary. Outreach will also provide funds.

Park Brook Graduation Party – Wednesday, June 6

  • 8:15 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. –Volunteers set up and serve the special breakfast prepared by the school cooks to the 5th graders and their teachers
  • 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. – Volunteers serve cake at Commencement
  • We should be set with volunteers; we have 4-6 people for both shifts

Completed Project Reports

Blood Drive 4/23 (Craig)

  • 24 units of blood collected. Thank Craig for leading the spring blood drive again this year!

April and May Avenues Birthday Parties (Jodi)

  • Jodi delivered party food and gift on 4/22 and 5/2.

Community Life

  • Bingo was an overwhelming success. We had 61 people for dinner and BINGO
  • The next event is a coordinated event with the Adventure Ministry on June 23

Congregational Care

None

Staff Reports:

Children and Family Ministry:

LOOKING BACK/MOMENT OF PRAISE

  • On Easter Sunday our young people had a blast coloring their Butterflies to receive their “prize” at the end of Worship. As Pastor Natalia mentioned – all she could hear was crayon to paper J
  • Mothers Day wrapped up our regular Sunday School for the school year. We ended our year by creating projects for the important women in our lives as well as singing in Church
  • Plant Sale is DONE (or will be by the time the meeting happens)

CURRENT

  • As we head into Summer we will once again be offering the following
    • Summer Day Camp (every week from June 11th – August 24th. We WILL take the week of July 4th off)
    • Sunday Morning DIG/Family Worship two Sundays a month
    • Childrens activity bulletins on NON Dig Sundays
    • Activity tables during Wednesday night worship
  • Working on finalizing numbers/staffing/curriculum for Summer Day Camp. This Summer we are digging in to what it means to love like Jesus loves
  • Our WAPO Numbers have grown in all of the different age groups. We continue to see new faces join us for our week, and many kiddos that just “aren’t quite ready” so they will join us for our One Day Adventure
  • Working on the Summer Kick-off Event for Sunday, June 10th

LOOKING AHEAD

  • Rally Day will be here before we know it. Mid-June I will book the bounce house/face painter. Mid-August I will start looking at food options and checking back in with Council for the Ministry Fair
  • Looking to change things up with Sunday School – not sure what that will look like yet, but ideas are swimming around in my brain and once Summer Day Camp gets up and running we will take a look at some different options
  • Looking to add the following Milestone Events for the 2018-2019 School Year. These would be in addition the current milestones (Baptism, Baptism Celebration, Welcome to Sunday School, Bible, Communion)
    • Prayer Milestone – 4 year olds (thinking during Lent)
    • Kids and Money Milestone – 1st Graders (maybe in November)
  • Will be doing Lutheran World Relief this fall – this will fill what used to be Operation Christmas Child. LWR has a variety of options, so working to find which best fits for Prince of Peace.

Youth and Family Ministry:

  • Axis has concluded for the year.
  • We are already taking registrations for next year as we will be moving to Axis being 6th-8th grade. I’m excited for 2 new generations!
  • Mission Week will take place the week of June 18th
  • Revolution will wrap up May 23rd. Still in conversation on what kids would like to do over the summer.
  • Re-imaging high school ministry: Currently researching what it might look like to shift the bulk of high school ministry to a focus of vocational discernment, (not that this doesn’t happen in some way for individuals currently) gearing our interactions/practices toward helping kids better discover their gifts & God’s calling for their life more explicitly. Again – very early stages, still gathering information & ideas.
  • Young adults: We have a very motivated handful of individuals right now! They are making personal invitations & connections & seeking to put together opportunities for more POP 20s/30s folks to connect.
  • Prince of Peace Adventures: A new initiative aimed at getting people together outside for some physical activity (hike, bike, etc.) with the goal of connecting with God & one another in nature. Open to all ages & abilities based on the event.
    • The hope is for multiple individuals to invite others to join them in an activity that works around their schedule, thus having a variety of opportunities weekly or monthly.
    • In addition, maybe once a month, holding one bigger event like the “Bike to the Beach” event led by the Amstrups happening June 23rd.

Pastoral Reports:

Pastor Chad’s Report:

  • Our Spring Forward In Faith stewardship emphasis has been well received during the past month. Our focus has been on the vital ministries we share as a faith community. We have tried to help members see the connection between their giving and the impact our congregation is having on the lives of so many people.
  • The challenge has been two fold. First, he asked people to consider taking a growth step of $5 in their weekly giving. The second priority of the campaign has been to raise the value of year-round, consistent giving that is not affected by presence at worship. Pastor Chad has had several people communicate with him directly that they are responding by raising their giving but it will take some time before we can measure the broader response.
  • The ELCA Larger Church Conference for senior pastors was once again a valuable learning experience. This year the conference was held in SC. The main presenter was Reggie McNeal. He is a well known missional leadership expert and author of many books. Much of his focus at this conference was related to his book “Kingdom Come: Why We Must Quit Our Obsession Over Fixing the Church and What We Should Do Instead” (Tyndale, 2015). In this book McNeal challenges the church to shift its narrative from a church-centric to a kingdom-centric storyline.
  • The next Vision Trip to Tanzania is just around the corner from June 14-27. A group of 10 people will represent Prince of Peace as we visit ministry partners throughout the Kilimanjaro region.
  • The summer worship schedule begins on May 27 when we go to one Sunday service at 9:30am. Wednesday eve summer worship will begin in the CLC on June 13 with one “community worship in the park” scheduled for August 22.
  • The new daycare did not receive the funding they required to start up as a new business. We are actively seeking other possibilities to partner with an organization that may need space during the week in order to generate rental income to support the budget.

Pastor Natalia’s Report:

  • GroupLife’s spring session is almost complete already! Man these just go by so quickly! The groups are talking about lesser-known women in the Bible and hopefully having good discussions on the role of women in the church and how the Bible is taught may skew our learnings about this topic. Groups will take a break for the summer, and we’ll jump back into things in October. Groups are encouraged to connect for social events over the summer, at least once.
  • Lots of things happening this summer around here – a few things to note:
    • Sunday worship will move to one service at 9:30 each week from May 27 through September 9. A reminder that the worship style during this time is primarily “blended” with both organ and band led. Side note, and pastoral soap box: remember to encourage people to support our musicians and volunteers, no matter what style of music they are leading. We are Prince of Peace together, and it is beautiful.
    • Wednesday worship will begin June 13th, at 6:30pm, through August 22nd. We will have our worship in the park on that final week of Wednesday worship. We will NOT have midweek worship on July 4th.
    • This July we are going to be a host site for “Serve Boldly” a Lutheran service organization (similar to youth works, but with good theology). We will be the host for the Minneapolis service site, and are looking forward to beginning this relationship that will continue in future years.
    • We will be doing another Prince of Peace OneRead this summer, from June 10th to July 8th. We will have book discussions on Sunday July 8th and again on Wednesday July 11th. Together, we will read the book “Everything Happens for a Reason and other lies I’ve loved” by Kate Bowler. If you are interested in hearing her talk, we will be showing her lovely talk from this year’s Why Christian concert as a part of midweek worship on June 20th.
    • Natalia has been invited to preach at Camp Wapo again this year, so she’ll be up at boat-in worship on June 3rd. Anyone is welcome to make the drive and worship by the water and stay for brunch following.Pastoral Acts (March 15-May 15): Funerals:2  Weddings:0  Baptisms:1Unfinished Business:
    • New Business:
    • None
  • There needs to be an amendment to the Continuing Resolutions to remove Spiritual Development as a council position and add both the Property and Youth council positions. We will do this through an e-mail vote to ensure we have a 2/3 majority.
  • A motion was made by Patti Amstrup and seconded by Julia Sevald to move forward with the air conditioning repairs that are mostly covered by insurance.
    • Pastor Chad led us through the first chapter of Lasting Impact
  • The first chapter is related to church growth: Why Are We Not Growing Faster?

 

    • Growth should be related to mission. We’re not trying to have a certain number of members. “As a rule, I believe healthy things grow.”
    • The author discusses 10 reasons why your church isn’t growing.
      • You’re in conflict
      • You’re more in love with the past then with the future
        • People don’t like change.
        • There is positive heritage we draw from. We need to navigate what should come with us and what we should be willing to leave behind.
      • You’re not that awesome to be around
      • You’re focused on yourself.
        • A person that is self-focused we call selfish, but a church that is self-focused we call normal.
      • You think culture is the enemy.
        • Our neighborhood has changed. If we don’t change, we are not going to be able to reach them.
      • You’re afraid to risk what is for the sake of what might be.
        • The greatest enemy of your future success is your current success.
        • What are we holding on to that we can let go of?
          • When we hold on to the good, we miss the great!
      • You can’t make a decision.
      • You talk more than you act.
      • You don’t think there’s anything wrong with your church.
      • You’re more focused on growth than you are on God.
        • You don’t get that sense here. Visitors tell us they were inspired and had a God experience. They don’t feel like we are trying to ratchet up our numbers.

Action Items:

    • Melissa will send an e-mail to the council asking them to reply and let us know whether or not they approve eliminating the Spiritual Development and adding the Property and Youth positions. The Exec Team is recommending this change.
  • Read the rest of Chapter 1 of Lasting Impact. We will discuss Chapter 2 the next time we meet.
  • Our next Council meeting will be Tuesday, August 21st at 7:00pm.

 

A motion was made by Linda Forkey and seconded by Jodi Spoden to adjourn the meeting.  Motion approved.  Meeting adjourned.

Respectfully submitted,

Melissa Johnson

Council Secretary