Dear Church Family,
I'm sitting in the Manchester airport waiting my departure on what
should prove to be my last "commuting" trip to Arizona. I need to
finish packing, get a ton of work done for Between the Lines and
discover.now, get the truck loaded (Monday the 19th's the target
date), paint a few rooms and do some other maintenance on the house
and see if we can nail down details for renting it out. (Sandi and I
could REALLY use your prayers on that.)
Then, I'll hop in Sandi's pickup and drive it across country to our
new home!
At first this was going to entail two trips but I've been convinced by
good people (Elder Tochterman, our Head Elder, Ralph Dawkins, Ed
Collins, Sandi and others) that it's not good stewardship of my time
or finances to make this two trips so our planned schedule has
changed... Roger Bothwell will be speaking on the 24th as I clearly
will not be back with this new itinerary. (I know that's a mistake on
my part as it will be a tremendous blessing to you folks but it will
put me behind the 8-ball a bit as I'll never be able to fill Roger's
sandals when it comes to preaching. Oh well. My loss, your gain!)
I really wanted to tell you that but I also want to keep you in the
loop regarding a very, very productive Church Board meeting last
night. I'll try to give you a one sentence synopsis (if I can) on
items that I think you'll find interesting and that you may wish to
pray about and speak to a board member about...
We have asked Annette Siver to step back into the Clerk's role and she
has asked for an associate. In the big picture I think it's going to
work well and that both parties are looking forward to the
relationship as the board is asking my wife, Sandi, to back Annette
up. They're going to work great together!
I shared with the board my initial thoughts on the type of people that
we might look for to fill the two associate pastor roles-
1) The most creative elementary school mind we can find to completely
strengthen, re-energize and empower our kids up through the 8th grade
and their families in Sabbath School, Adventurers, summer programs and
the like. This person would be a HUGE blessing to all who work so
hard for our kids in various roles in the church already.
2) A combination "Health Outreach" genius/Parish Nurse/community
health advocate.
We'll see if others share the sense of vision for how these two roles
would so very much take us to another level in many ways. (We'll seek
to solidify our thinking for or against these leanings during our
February meeting... I know the SNEC leadership is anxious for us to
move forward in these matters.)
The Board voted to ask our Audio/Visual committee to send a
representative to the church board as a full member.
We are going to ask a single individual to take up the role of Head
Deacon. I am not at liberty to share name/s with you at this point as
they have not been approached yet.
In our February meeting (3rd Tuesday next month as Sandi and I will be
attending the National Pastors Convention in San Diego from Feb. 8-14)
we will "replace" four names for those who have declined to serve as
our Constituent Reps for the SNEC this spring.
Jeremy Malin is going to make sure we get some hymnals upstairs so
that all of the balcony can be used each Sabbath now.
The "Agape Fund" will now be accessed if there is agreement only
between the pastor, the head elder and a treasurer. No one else needs
to know the details of how we impact and bless people who hit bumps in
the road.
I've asked that we craft a "double" white marker board for random
usage during sermons. (I need to flesh out with our skilled A/V folks
how this might impact our video production.)
It will be our policy to provide musicians (i.e. organists) for
special weekends just as we would if they were regular weekends for
the church family.
Our Finance Committee is hoping to clarify viable and understood
funding for our Adventurers.
It was unanimously agreed that it is time for us to turn over the two
rooms to our Earliteen and Junior classes as their territory, full-
time. We will work hard to take events that have upset their
stability into other areas of the church from now on. (Communion will
probably have to be our one exception for this.) So, Juniors and
Earliteens: You are no longer second class citizens and your leaders
can "have at it!"
We briefly talked of five issues of the facility:
1) Painting and repair needs throughout.
2) Upgrades in lighting... both those required by fire code AND the
huge need that we have from things that are not mandatory, but are
elective (as in the foyer, Sanctuary, and the Junior and Earliteen
rooms.)
(Notice how easily we can now call those classrooms by that
designation and mean it!)
3) Thoughts about minimizing the huge "down-lighting" on the stage
from the beautiful skylight.
4) Repositioning of the rails to the stage.
5) Possible creation of stained glass for the 22 panels of windows
against the ceiling.
The role,timing and necessity of "Ministry Minutes" is being re-
evaluated. This will have to be something we process through the next
month.
I even threw into the mix the idea that we create a "countdown clock"
that allows for "post-Sabbath School" community interaction that would
wean down to silence and reverence in the Sanctuary as we approach
11:00 a.m... I've actually seen this really work to be a huge blessing
to a church family.
I volunteered to teach a general Sabbath School lesson class on the
first Sabbath of each quarter. We are not ready to commit one way or
another to this until we get a sense from our teachers as to whether
this would be a real contribution or a detriment to what they hope to
accomplish.
I will be creating a "set" for four days of filming for discover.now
during March. This will be in the chapel and will tie that room up
from Sunday to Wednesday of some yet-to-be-determined week.
We are going to offer some excess office materials to Theology
students at AUC and are going to give some unused Sabbath School
chairs to the Portuguese church.
Wow! That's a lot of discussion and progress for one meeting, isn't it?
I know there's exciting things in the offing for us all. It will be
invigorating to see how Christ directs us in these items and more...
and I appreciate you being a part of it! This is such a great church
family!
I'll see you as soon as I can.
'Lord Bless',
Pastor Don Pate
