Board of Deacons (“BoD”) Meeting Minutes

October 15, 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, Jimin Xiong, Xin-Wen Wang, Haiguo Wu (Head Deacon), Tuanfeng Zhang, Shanchuan Zhao
2. Invitees: BoE members: Ke-chieh Chu
3. Absentees: Jian Zhang

2. Location: Conference room, church office building.

3. Meeting Agenda & Minutes

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

1. Fall Mandarin Gospel Meeting was held on September 23-25.
2. The English ministry retreat was held from September 31 to October 2 and had around 90 attendees.  Some members of Chinese Ministry joined as well.
3. A new English Ministry website was launched on October 9.
4. Tomorrow is the church’s 47th anniversary celebration and annual meeting.
5. The Missions and social conference conference, with speaker Todd Engelson, will be held on November 11-13.
6. The Chinese Ministry choir will present a choral cantata on December 4.
7. Christmas Eve service will be held as usual on the Saturday before Christmas Sunday.
8. There are three year-end missions related activities:

1. Chinese Missions Conference in Baltimore
2. Chinese Overseas Christian Mission short term missions trip in London
3. NEWS Camp in Western MA

9. The missions fund is dangerously low.
10. Minister Stanley Chang and his wife Christine have arrived.  His first official day was October 12.
11. Pastor Jen will delay her sabbatical until after the youth pastor transition.
12. The English pastor search committee continues interviewing potential candidates.  Pastor Caleb encourages the church to continue praying and trusting in God’s timing.
13. Pastor Caleb listed the following potential ministries in which the church could engage:

1. New immigrants and parachute young students/parents from China are causing the church to consider stronger Chinese Ministry support for youth and children’s ministry.
2. The church is expecting to start a student host family ministry for young foreign students.
3. The Rainbow Senior Center and senior housing organizations has asked our church to consider leading Chinese Bible studies at their facilities.
4. Abraham Liu has proposed a North Shore fellowship group.
5. Chinese Bible Church of Greater Lowell has approached the church to consider jointly planting a church in Andover.
6. There is consideration for church plants near Quincy and Malden given the number of attendees from there; however, those areas already have many Chinese churches.
7. The cancellation of Junior Alive at the beginning of September has prompted the church to consider how to improve communication among all ministry groups.  The pastors are initiating the design of a synchronized annual calendar.

14. The Board of Elders has approved Pastor Caleb’s sabbatical plan from April to September 2017.  Pastor David Eng will be acting senior pastor during that period.  Please pray for Pastor David as he has already taken on the English Ministry lead pastor responsibilities.
15. Senior Pastor succession plan:

1. Pastor Caleb is contemplating stepping down as senior pastor in 2018.
2. It’s expected that the church will continue as usual both before and after the transition.
3. Pastor Caleb and his wife Esther currently plan to stay at the church after retirement.
4. Please pray for a peaceful, godly, and blessed transition.

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

1. The Board of Elders has officially approved Metro-south independence starting on January 1, 2017.
2. At the last church council meeting, a decision was made to do feasibility studies regarding holding multiple services or live-streaming to remote locations in lieu of building a larger sanctuary.
3. The Chinese Ministry spiritual formation ministry review (led by Elder Terry Yang) and English ministry review (led by Elder David Ho) are scheduled for November and December respectively.
4. Elder Bryan will kick off the church mission statement committee meetings in January.  Elder Terry and Elder Ke-chieh have volunteered to join the committee.  Elder Bryan is still seeking more volunteers.
5. The Board of Elders have also discussed the church’s strategy in reaching out to international students.  Kenny Chau, one of our missionaries, will be coming in November and will be sharing from his ministry experience with international students during the missions and social concerns conference.
6. The Board of Elders have approved Pastor Caleb’s previously described succession plan timeline.  The Board of Elders will establish the senior pastor search committee next month.
7. For more information, please refer to the October Board of Elders minutes.

4. Financial Report (Lance Pan)

8. General Fund budget summary - up to September 30, total expense is $302,320 (16.5% of total annual budget), and total offering is $402,514 (22.0% of budget).  The targeted percentage is 25% (Three months complete in the fiscal year).
9. Note that lead English Ministry pastor and English administrative assistant positions have not yet been filled but are in the budget, contributing to the general fund surplus.
10. The missions fund is in danger of falling below $0.

1. The missions fund had a surplus of $334,120 after 2012.
2. The missions committee over the last few years have been steadily seeking to use what church members have given to missions faithfully (as directed by the Board of Elders).  While the missions fund spending has been increasing, missions fund giving has remained relatively constant over the last 4 years.
3. As a result, the missions fund is now near empty.  The missions committee is identifying ways to publicize this to the congregation to increase giving so that the committee does not need to start reducing support to existing missionaries.

5. Technology Update (Joshua Chang)

1. The English Ministry has been trying the new digital mixers; the Chinese Ministry will start using them soon.  After the trial period, a decision will be made regarding which of the two digital mixers to keep going forward.
2. A new ceiling speaker has been installed in room 220 to improve audio intelligibility.
3. The new English Ministry website (crossbridge.life) went live last Sunday.  The team is seeking how to both leverage social media and use podcasts for broadcasting sermons.
4. Two more WiFi access points were purchased and will be installed towards the front of the sanctuary.
5. The church phone system has been updated, and the church answering machine now answers correctly.  The recorded message listing the pastoral staff and extensions needs to be re-recorded due to the arrival of Minister Stanley Chang.
6. Josh has worked with the Chinese Ministry recording team to leverage the same system that English Ministry has used which has improved the video quality of recorded sermons.

6. Stewardship update (Haiguo Wu for Jian Zhang)

1. Property projects

1. As previously reported, the final design of the upper-level parking driveway between the church office and 151 is complete.  One modification that will be made is to restore the handicap ramp from 151 to the carriage house parking lot, eliminating the planned handicap parking directly next to 151, due to the extreme cost of the former design.
2. The church has received a quote for building a new parking lot between the church office and 151 which will create 20-25 new parking spaces.
3. The HVAC project has been delayed, because the contractor is investigating whether the church can save money via Mass Save programs.

2. Property maintenance

1. The old striping in the carriage house parking lot (preventing parking near the since closed staircase) has been removed.
2. New parking signs in the carriage house parking lot have been installed to reserve parking for special educational purposes.
3. Sidewalk cracks have been filled.
4. A wasp nest was removed from 151.
5. Unused chairs were moved from the chapel to Metro-south.

3. Property management

1. Eversource was contacted in order to receive electricity credit refunds.
2. Assisted children’s ministry to replace the nursery counter top and cabinets.
3. Worked with an HVAC contractor to inspect church facilities for running gas pipes, etc.
4. Quarterly elevator maintenance service was done.
5. Declined space renting proposals from mobile telecommunications companies.

7. Facility Usage Policy revision (Haiguo Wu)

1. A change has been made to the policy requiring any application for church facility usage to have an endorsement from a current church council member.

8. Annual Meeting Support (Haiguo Wu)

1. Deacon Haiguo encouraged deacons to help out with annual meeting logistics if available in the areas of ballot distribution/collection/counting, Q/A session help, etc.

9. Deacon Xinwen closed in prayer and Deacon Haiguo adjourned the meeting at 11:33 am.