Council Meeting

Update on our new Council format. I took Chuck Olsen's suggestion and together with my ministerial colleague Jeff Maissan and our Council Chair Dan Plunkett, we structured our last agenda on the same format as Sunday worship. We started off with the Christ candle and prayer, reviewed the past (minutes, correspondence, etc.), did some biblical reflection on Acts 6: 1-7 (the Word) and then used the committee and team reports as the Offering. In my mind, it made a huge difference. Our finance team presented a draft budget with a huge projected shortfall. In the past, the entire meeting would have been taken over with not very productive chattering about what we could do. The presentation was surrounded by prayer and, even though everyone grasped the enormity of it, the usual degree of anxiety was absent, I felt, from the room. Something to build on.