Board of Deacons (“BoD”) Meeting Minutes

April 16, 2016

1. In Attendance:

1. Attendees: Pastor Caleb Chang (Senior Pastor), Joshua Chang, Christopher Cheng (Secretary), Chun-Yi Hu, Lance Pan (Treasurer), Phil Sailer, Beata Shih, Haiguo Wu (Head Deacon), Jian Zhang, Tuanfeng Zhang
2. Invitees: BoE members: Ke-chieh Chu
3. Absentees: Xin-Wen Wang, Jimin Xiong, Shanchuan Zhao

2. Location: Conference room, church office building.

3. Meeting Agenda & Minutes

1. Meeting started at 9:05 am.  Deacon Haiguo Wu opened in prayer.
2. Senior Pastor Sharing and Update (Pastor Caleb Chang)

1. Stephen Ministry recruiting and retreat went well.  Three new brothers and three new sisters have been trained and will serve this year.
2. Mandarin Gospel Meeting follow-up is running well.  Evangelism Explosion (EE) teams are in process of visiting attendees.
3. Three brothers, including Minister Yuegang, will go to Atlanta Chinese Christian Church North for Evangelism Explosion Train the Trainers. Pray for the revival of the EE ministry.

1. There is no Evangelism Explosion training Sunday School class after this semester, because Sunday School does not provide sufficient time for proper training.  The church would like to restart training on weeknights.

4. English Pastoral Search Committee has conducted vigorous Skype interviews for screened applicants.  No candidate has been identified yet for an on-site interview.
5. Youth Pastoral Search Committee has unanimously recommended one candidate to be invited for on-site interview.
6. A farewell to Pastor Chuck and Irene Lowe will take place on his last Sunday (June 26) with cake cutting and pizza.
7. English Ministry mental health conference was well attended.  While debriefing, the pastoral staff remarked that the conference could have been given more time/sessions.
8. Please encourage members to attend the church-wide informational meeting tomorrow.
9. Ruth Lu had a bad fall last sunday.  Please pray for her.  Use officestaff@cbcgb.org to reserve rooms.

1. A question was asked whether the church should have a separate reservations mailing list so that the office staff mailing list can be maintained independently.  Discussion to continue offline.

10. Summer retreat planning is being led by Ji-yong Wang with Minister Yuegang as consulting minister.  The team has high morale, but may require a budget increase.  The primary speaker is Rev. Joshua Ting, and Dr. David Tran will speak on mental health.  Pastor Jiang has offered to hold evangelical sessions.
11. Pastors are working on the church building expansion project requirements.  All church council members are encouraged to participate.

1. Deacon Phil Sailer and Deacon Joshua Chang have been coordinating building requirements, so all feedback should be funneled towards them.

12. Chinese ministry is approaching capacity.  A plan needs to be created to support the growing congregation.
13. Pastor Caleb expressed his thanks for the approval and installation of the new laser projector.
14. The HVAC replacement project may cost up to $250,000.  Request for quote is on-going.

3. Board of Elders (“BoE”) Sharing (Elder Ke-chieh Chu)

1. The missions ministry was reviewed this past month.  The BoE gained a better understanding of the situation and had some suggestions for how to improve the ministry.  The BoE also discussed ways to increase pledge participation.  The missions committee will review the feedback and work out implementation details.
2. During the information meeting tomorrow, there will be updates on the two pastoral searches, Metro-south, English ministry branding, major facility improvements, the church vision statement, and the church building expansion project.
3. Four elders are completing their BoE term.  Two of these elders are not eligible for re-nomination because they are concluding their second term.  Please pray for the elder nomination process.
4. For more information, please refer to the April Board of Elders minutes.

4. Financial Report (Lance Pan)

5. General Fund budget summary - up to March 31, total expense is $1,239,701.38 (69.9% of total annual budget), and total offering is $1,504,640.45 (84.9% of budget).  The targeted percentage is 75.0% (9 months complete in the fiscal year).
6. The general fund has surplus, but is not sufficient to cover the already approved parking lot improvements and the future HVAC replacement project.
7. January’s giving was particularly high this year.  This was because the first Sunday of 2016 was January 3 and many contributions that members intended for 2015 did not arrive at church until the new year and were counted towards 2016 rather than 2015.

5. MetroSouth member loan payoff (Lance Pan)

1. When Metro-south purchased their property, $186,500 of that purchase was funded by member loans.  To pay off the loan, it was decided that 50% of Metro-south’s general fund surplus from FY15 to FY17 would be used with an additional $15,000 contributed after FY17 if necessary.
2. Praise God that member loans are projected to be paid off by the end of this fiscal year.
3. Given that Metro-south will soon be legally independent:

1. What is the timing of the property title transfer from CBCGB to Metro-south?
2. The church committed to use 50% of Metro-south surplus only for the purpose of repaying member loans.  Once this commitment is fulfilled, what are the arrangements for future Metro-south surplus before they become independent?
3. After Metro-south becomes legally independent, how should operational support for Pastor Jiang Wei be managed as he transitions from CBCGB staff to Metro-south staff?

4. It is important that any decisions are communicated promptly and clearly so that members understand how donated money will be used.  Mother church leadership will seek to discuss with Metro-south leadership on how to answer these questions.

6. Retreat registration credit card acceptance (Lance Pan)

1. Church members have asked to use credit cards to pay for retreat registration.  If the church wants to accept credit cards, one option is to use PayPal.  PayPal levies a 2.2% + $0.30 charge per transaction for non-profit organizations.  The church would need to pass these fees onto church members.
2. The church may be required to open up another account to implement this.
3. The question of whether the church should accept donations via credit card is a larger issue that needs engagement from the Board of Elders.  If that occurs, church members need to be informed of the extra processing fees that are incurred by the church with credit cards.
4. If the Board of Deacons approves, the finance committee may still not implement if it is operationally too complex.
5. It was proposed to start small with a pilot project to test out processes that the finance committee implements.
6. Deacon Joshua Chang motioned to allow the finance committee to research and accept electronic payments for non-offering transactions.  Deacon Beata Shih seconded.  The motion passed unanimously.

7. Stewardship report (Jian Zhang)

1. Property Projects

1. The front wall of the 151 building meeting room has been painted with special screen paint for use with projectors.  The screen paint is darker than the current main building sanctuary paint, so it was not applied there.
2. Two hour HVAC timers have been installed in the main building third floor rooms.
3. New HVAC systems are required in the main building for the chapel, first floor classrooms, and third floor classrooms due to lack of reliability (old age) and low efficiency.  The current systems are also underdesigned relative to the size of space they are managing.  Potential architectures include a centralized gas boiler or distributed vs. inline gas-fired duct heaters.
4. The carriage house parking expansion project will remove tree stumps, widen the parking lot (by pushing back the slope and adding crushed stones in non-paved areas), and create 4-5 new parking spots in front of the church office building.
5. The lower level of the main parking lot may need some crushed stone because the soil is currently very soft.
6. The retaining wall between the carriage house parking and church office building is crumbling; the areas with greatest need will be patched.
7. Water leakage through the 151 building meeting room door has been addressed.
8. A flower-bed watering system is being installed as an eagle scout project in April/May.

2. Property Maintenance

1. Two stop signs will be installed around the main parking lot in areas of high vehicle and pedestrian traffic.  It was suggested to draw stripes on the ground to enable clarity.
2. The lights in room 216 have been lowered and changed into LED lighting.
3. The sanctuary ceiling fans were cleaned using the lift rented for projector installation.
4. The nursery wall was repainted.  The nursery countertop will also be changed.
5. The church office entrance steps are cracking but will be fixed.

3. Property Management

1. Applied and received food service certification
2. Applied and received building certification for the 151 building
3. Renewed the church van registration
4. Applied for a liability certificate for City Outreach Ministry retreat.
5. Ordered chairs for the chapel dining room areas.
6. Replenished the mouse trap for the entire building except for children’s ministry areas.
7. Complied with the town’s demand to replace the water meter
8. Conducted quarterly elevator maintenance

4. Room 302 may be available for church service overflow.

8. Technology update (Joshua Chang)

1. The new laser projector has been installed.  However, the existing cabling does not support high resolution video, so the team is working on upgrading it.  Any visual artifacts that are still present are due to the older cabling.
2. The phone recording system was offline because it had been unplugged.  The recorded office staff list have been updated.  The committee is continuing to research new phone systems that will provide greater access, control, and flexibility.
3. The committee met with the website team to try to clarify their relationship with the technology committee.  The committee is working on coordinating Chinese and English ministry website teams to chart the path forward.  The church website team has noted that they are a technical team, not a marketing team.  While they are willing to post content, they aren’t equipped for creating the content.  It was proposed that the church should create a marketing or communications team for generating website content.
4. The electronic lock access control system is no longer being pursued due to cost.
5. The committee needs to understand how often the church plans on live-streaming video (e.g. to sister churches or other remote locations).  Potential options include a monthly subscription model or leveraging a free service like YouTube.

1. Members of the board expressed a desire to pursue live-streaming church services.
2. It was noted that viewing videos on YouTube’s site can be inappropriate due to arbitrary linked videos or advertisements.
3. Regarding internal church building video feeds, it makes more sense to distribute audio/video via dedicated cabling rather than putting a load on the church network.

6. The committee is still seeking to clean up and document various church IT architectures to enable easier future maintenance and support.

9. CBE requirements update (Phil Sailer and Joshua Chang)

1. A framework for gathering requirements has been created.  Historical requirements from a prior analysis and mustard seed ministry requirements (Judy Miao) have been gathered.
2. Deacon Phil would like to identify an economic option for installing a playground as the weather turns nicer.  He will create a proposal and work with Deacon Jian to implement it.

10. Church-wide information meeting

1. Deacons are asked to encourage church members to attend.
2. Twenty minutes have been allocated for updates from the Board of Deacons.
3. Deacons are needed to help with collecting questions.

11. Deacon Lance closed in prayer and Deacon Haiguo adjourned the meeting at 12:28pm.
12. Addendum

1. At the end of March and beginning of April, via electronic ballot, Deacon Haiguo motioned to approve $7999.00 from the capital fund for the project "Sanctuary Projector Replacement".  Deacon Beata seconded. The motion passed unanimously.