Contrary to popular belief, a pastor doesn't "run" a church. If he or she does, it's isn't a church. The talents, gifts, abilities, and presence of an involved congregation is how a church best functions as part of God's Kingdom. We are disciples, and we are to make disciples. The pastor is a shepherd and a leader, but by no means "runs" things.
One of the things we realized a couple of years ago at RUMC was that the Church Council structure was really not serving the needs and ministry of our church very well. When the Church Council structure was envisioned several years by the denomination, it was an effort to consolidate meetings and committees to a smaller number – in essence it merged the Administrative Board and Council on Ministries into one entity. While fewer meetings took place and fewer folks had to be nominated to serve on committees, it unfortunately did something else: some things fell through the cracks, and some Church Council meetings lasted a long time.
So we have decided to go back to the original format: we will have an Administrative Board, which will deal primarily with decision-making; and a Council on Ministries, which will lead our church in visioning and implementing programming and discipleship. There will certainly be interaction between these two bodies, but it will be in final decision-making. This allows ideas to be birthed and discussed in their respective venues, so when we come together as one body we spend more time on refining a few things rather than be overwhelmed by all of them.
We will meet on Saturday, January 24th, in the church Sanctuary – starting at 9:30 AM. We will work until noon. This will be a meeting to talk about how we will function, what areas of church program need coverage, and who is responsible. Along with this, the church calendar will be presented which should further allow us be sure of our responsibilities and tasks.
This is a meeting open to EVERYONE. We need your ideas, we need your gifts, and we need your presence. So many things are going well at Reidland, and we not only need to keep these things going well, but be willing to expand our disciple making to include the marginally churched and the unchurched.
I hope to see you on the 24th. It will be a wonderful way to start the New Year.
Pax,
Sky+
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