Pastor’s Summary of Session on June 22, 2010
submitted by Reverend Bryan Stamper, Senior Pastor
Here are my reflections from our Session meeting on Tuesday evening, June 22nd, 2010. This is not to be considered an official record of what transpired. I offer this to clarify what I took away from our meeting and to inform our congregation of the major decisions we agreed upon.
The meeting opened at 7:00 PM with a quorum and a welcome to our guests. Deacons Portia Stephens and Carol Hogan were in attendance to provide a report from the deacons. Jerry Kester represented the staff. Dillon Ferguson, a seminary student and regular attender at GPC, was at our meeting to take notes for a class.
Devotional Reflection
We began a with a prayer and a short devotional centered around the idea of “where there is no vision, the people perish.” My own particular concern is that this scripture is often misused. I believe the author’s intent is to challenge God’s people to see the future with God in it, not their own desires. We include God in our future and prayerfully look forward, we don’t put our faith in a document from a person.
And yet, somebody has to take the initiative to write down dreams for any particular church. Accordingly, I have been meeting with Jim McCoy and David Myers to craft and clarify a vision statement. Tentative plans involve sharing the draft of a vision statement with a broad based sample of members from Grace PC. After the discernment process is complete, the vision statement will be presented to the Session for approval and then publication for our church family.
The purpose of writing a vision statement is to hold future generations of leaders accountable to a direction for the church. We trust the way in which we are going through this visioning process will provide ample opportunities for the Holy Spirit to clarify our thoughts. Goals and objectives can be prioritized every year based on how they adhere to a vision that comes from our leadership. Again, we trust God will be in the process.
David Myers affirmed we have been meeting and his affirmation of the direction of the statement to date. His discernment is that we need more than a statement that says, “we want to grow.” There was support from the group to proceed with the visioning process.
Tentative plans call for this document to come to the Session within the next few months.
Staff Report: Jerry Kester, Director of Missions
Next we heard a presentation from Jerry Kester, our Director of Missions at GPC. He facilitated an excellent presentation. I reminded the Session that while Jerry is on staff, attending weekly staff meetings and overseeing all our missions at Grace, he is one of our unpaid staff positions.
Jerry spent about fifteen minutes sharing his understanding of the job responsibilities for the Director of Missions, 2010 Mission Team goals, a list of team members with their specific areas of responsibility and a complete list of the missions we support at Grace PC. Jerry’s presentation was clear, informative and insightful. A summary of Jerry’s report will be available on www.gracepcfamily.org under News/Session Updates/Pastor Reports.
I confirmed my recent discussion with Jerry about a long term commitment to evaluate how we do missions at Grace PC. We, the Session, will spend the next few months focusing on every aspect of how we spend our mission resources, fund mission trips and pick mission projects. Naturally, Jerry will be a resource for us. The process will begin next month at our July Session meeting.
We concluded Jerry’s time with questions, much thanks and a prayer. Again, it was a great presentation. Next month’s staff report will come from the Music Ministry Department.
Deacon Report: Portia Stephens, Carol Hogan
We then heard from deacon representatives Portia Stephens and Carol Hogan. Portia updated us as to where the Deacons are in the process of contacting members in their respective parishes. Personal contacts from Deacons to members in their parishes happens quarterly. It is going well. Carol then shared about a few of our members with serious health issues. We took the opportunity to pray for the sick and hurting among us.
I shared Lynn McCoy’s willingness to serve as the moderator of the deacons for one more year. This may require Session approval. I meet with Lynn monthly to cover any issues concerning the deacons and the rest of the church. They are working hard to provide each of our members with a picture of their respective deacons. We thanked Portia and Carol for their service as members of our Nurture Council.
Clerk’s Report: Jim McCoy
There were no major issues to cover in the Clerk’s Report. Acting Clerk of Session Jim McCoy did share a thank you letter from West Plano Presbyterian for our help in providing a larger facility for a funeral service. Executive Pastor Richard Barnard also took the opportunity to share a letter from our bank essentially noting our strong financial position. Our bank receipts as of the end of April are the highest they have been in the past five years. We are also right on target with our budgeted income figures. Please say “thank you” to Treasurer Bill Miller and Financial Secretary Teri Urff at your convenience.
There were no major items to correct for the approval of minutes or within the omnibus motion. A few points were clarified and corrected. The minutes were accepted and the omnibus motion passed (there were no significant items in the omnibus motion).
Financial Report
There were no details to cover with the financial report other than to confirm our good financial position as of the end of May. God is good. Do note we have some expenditures to cover from the Youth Choir Tour and we are under budget due to some significant staff savings (no Associate Pastor to date, which was budgeted to start in May).
New Business
We then opened the floor to new business. There were four items to discuss.
1. A presbytery report from Bev Kester.
2. A motion from the Evangelism Council to adjust our discount to employees for any children they have in the day school.
3. A motion from the Shepherding Council to expand the narthex.
4. Discussion of future surplus funds.
1. Presbytery Report
Bev Kester shared her notes with us from the Temple, TX presbytery meeting on June 12th. First, it was a two hour car ride with a lot of fellowship between myself, Andrea Bailey and Bev. While it was a long ride, it was fun. Ask Andrea to share her hamster story with you.
Bev shared her notes then turned our attention to the upcoming General Assembly in Minneapolis from July 3rd - 10th. All elders are encouraged to follow along on the PCUSA website at this link (http://www.pcusa.org/ga219/); there will be an ongoing tally of items on the docket. Among other things, the assembly will cover issues concerning our form of government, ordination of homosexuals, the possible removal of middle governing bodies and middle East issues. It should be an interesting General Assembly.
Jim McCoy agreed to look into GA issues for our July meeting but again, all elders are encouraged to follow along.
2. Day School Adjustments
The Evangelism Council offered a motion which essentially boosted employee discounts for children in our day school. Employees of Grace Presbyterian and employees of the day school are eligible for up to a 50 percent discount, with a annual cap of $5,000 total discount. This percentage is more in line with schools in the area. After some clarifying questions, the motion passed.
3. Narthex Expansion
The Shepherding Council brought a motion that requests a maximum of $10,000 to expand our receptionist/narthex area. The motion is not the final approval phase of the plan, merely an approval to move forward with the project. A hand drawn rendering was provided.
There was significant discussion.
From my perspective, the issue was not actually about the idea. Everybody seems enthusiastic to expand the available space for our members in the narthex on Sunday morning. Neither was the cost an issue. There was some question as to how the entire thing could be done for $10,000, but Richard informed us we had some informal bids for much less than $10,000.
Rather, the issue seems to be down in the details. How much information Session needs versus the Shepherding Council itself. This comment is again my opinion but here it is: the questions seemed to be focused more at the project level as opposed to the oversight level. I believe our church size will require Session to move in the direction of oversight, verses management-size, leadership.
To help with this process, I asked if it would be helpful to have an Elder or Pastor from Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church attend a Session meeting. If you will recall, they have made the transition to no assigned Elders to teams within the last year. In their leadership model, elders spend more time in big picture oversight, vision casting and overall accountability for staff and the church’s health.
I think hearing from a representative from a similar context will be helpful as we move forward in transitioning to a smaller Session. The motion passed unanimously.
4. Surplus Funds
There was no motion that came with this discussion. It arose in response to the motion to expand the narthex. The term “surplus funds” is somewhat misleading. The correct term might be more understood as “under budget” or funds available. Regardless, the issue is what do we want to do in the future when funds become available?
I believe the motivation for this from the Shepherding Council was to ensure all the ministry teams have the chance to take advantage of available funds. I think the concern was that their might be teams who did not have a chance to ask for funds. To date, we’ve received three lists for extra funds (children’s ministry, student ministry and music ministry). As far as I can tell, in the past seven years there has not been a single instance to adjust the budget upwards for spending. It has always been downward (i.e., cut your budget at the end of the year). So we are in new territory (having more to spend).
To add a little more weight to the issue, it should be noted that some on the Session would want to match dollar for dollar extra spending with debt reduction. Others on the Session would not. We did not discuss this issue in depth but I would think it will come up next month when we discuss new spending items.
To summarize our discussion regarding surplus funds, here are some questions that come to my mind that I hope capture the spirit of what we discussed:
How are we defining surplus?
Who is telling us we have extra funds?
Are we accounting for expense timing issues to ensure we really have extra funds?
Should any more money go towards debt reduction on top of what we already set aside for debt reduction?
Has every team had a chance to submit requests?
Should we have two elders work with Richard to submit a new list with extra fund requests? (Richard will send out a third round of emails giving teams the chance to submit requests for their respective dream lists).
Officer Nominating Committee
Liz Urech reminded us to submit names for the Officer Nominating Committee. The people you submit for the office of elder or deacon do not need to be asked at this point in the process. The ONC will approach candidates and invite them to discern their willingness to serve for a three year term.
The meeting closed with a prayer at 9:00PM.
Mission Report June 2010 click HERE to download
