Board of Elders (“BoE”) Meeting Minutes

June 14, 2014

Present: Liqin Chen (Chair), Pastor Caleb Chang, Ke-Chieh Chu, Yuguang He, David Ho, Timothy Lu, Loren Shih (Chair, Board of Deacons [“BoD”]), Ming-Jer Tsai, Terry Yang (Secretary)

Invited for Youth Ministry (“YM”) Review: Pastor Sandy Liu, Minister Jennifer Lin

Elder Liqin opened with prayer at 9:04 am.

1.      Brief Sharing

Elders shared experiences with recent travels to Australia, local Asian pastor retreat over Memorial Day weekend focusing on pastoral staff-lay Elder relations.

2.      Update on State of CBCGB

Pastor Caleb provided the following updates on:

• Pastor Steven Bowman, Children (“Kids”) Minister (“KM”) candidate to fill Pastor King-Fai Choi’s vacancy, accepted position beginning October 1, 2014.
• Chia-Li Li serving as paid interim administrator of Children Ministry until Pastor Bowman begins his employment contract, with a one month overlap transition period in October.
• “Post-90” seminar organized by Chinese Coordination Center Of World Evangelism this weekend, hosted by CBCGB.
• Chinese Ministry (“CM”) Revival conference July 25-27, 2014 with Pastor Wilson Chang from Rutgers Community Christian Church in New Jersey.
• Six-Turtle Orphanage Choir evangelistic service on evening of July 27.
• CM and English Ministry (“EM”) Sunday School topics.
• Potential CM-wide retreat next year should CM fellowships respond positively.

3.      BoD Update

Deacon Loren provided the following updates on:

• Potential new minivan to serve Quincy Fellowship.

4.      Ministry Review – Youth

 Pastor Sandy and Minister Jen provided overview of current status of YM:

• Strengths in Friday night fellowships, discipleship/mentoring with Student Leadership, short-term missions and service projects and four annual retreats.
• Areas needing improvement with Junior ALIVE crowd control, youth Sunday School (lack of space and gifted teachers), parent involvement outside of Youth Parent Association.
• Senior ALIVE

• 80-95 teens
• Major life issues: low self-esteem, performance anxiety, fear of failure
• Obstacles to faith: parental and personal idolatry, time crunch, Internet temptations, searching for love
• Past year target: “Everyone Know Everyone”, enjoy inductive Bible-studies (learn to self-study and discern, not just be fed by teacher)

• Junior ALIVE

• 75-80 teens, lack of counselors and Sunday School teachers
• Major life issues: puberty and discovering opposite sex, pressure of school (college-prep)
• Obstacles to faith: peer pressure (fitting in/fear of rejection), time/priorities
• Past year target: Grow in faith and knowledge, be a welcoming community

• Vision: Discipleship

• Godly character and obedience to God
• Actively engaged in church life, outreach and service
• Increased desire to be like Christ
• Biblical/theological literacy

• Goals:

• Recruit solid counselors who commit long-term (2-4 years)
• Train and encourage current counselors and parents
• Develop and grow short-term mission teams
• Creative planning for future numeric growth

• Challenges

• Anticipated large staff turnover near-term
• Large volume of administrative needs (including Criminal Offender Record Information [“CORI”] checks)
• Lack of space: limited breakout spaces for small group, basement table teardown/set-up every week
• Overall church calendar too busy (hard to schedule additional events), competition for vans and space
• Volume of families without healthy Christian family lives and parents without personal discipleship or Biblical literacy

Elders suggested carving out CM Sunday School classes to focus on healthy Christian family living and folding youth and family programs into a potential church-wide retreat. BoE assigned Elders Yuguang, David and Timothy to investigate how to address parental lack of personal discipleship to be revisited during the August BoE meeting.

Minister Jennifer presented slideshow overview of YM activities.

5.      Church Vision Development

Elder Liqin presented his plan for working through the church vision development process during the Church Council retreat next weekend on June 21, 2014, and what the outputs from the retreat are expected to be. BoE discussed overarching principles to govern development process; BoE agreed that BoE will lead and establish the CBCGB vision with inputs from the pastoral staff, BoD, ministry leaders and congregation.  

 6.      Church Directory

Elder Tsai relayed question from Website Team regarding how to populate online church directory, as the opt-in process initiated by the Church Directory Team only covered hardcopy church directory. After discussion, BoE decided that those who opted-into hardcopy church directory will be asked to authorize inclusion in online church directory when they pick up hardcopy.

7.          Church Building Expansion (“CBE”) Brief Update

Elder Ke-Chieh provided brief update on CBE:

• Hazardous Material Hygienist inspection discovered small amounts of asbestos in existing 151 Spring Street building, which will need to be removed prior to demolition;
• CM and EM current and future usage survey completed and compiled for use in future CBE Phase II/Phase III re-design;
• Approximately 2/3 of fundraising goal of $1 million completed at the end of May 2014;
• Second newsletter to be published in June 2014.

8.          Chinese Minister focused on Fellowship Ministry (“CM-FM”) Recommendation and Approval

Pastor Caleb provided recap on process for recruiting CM-FM, the recommendation of the CM-FM Pastoral Search Committee of a specific candidate and the appointment of that candidate by Pastor Caleb for approval by the BoE. BoE discussed concerns regarding candidate and candidate’s strengths, as well as the candidate’s current work and family situation and future potential in a pastoral role. BoE decided to table discussion pending candidate meeting with full BoE.

9.          Board of Deacon Nominations

Elder Yuguang presented slate of prioritized nominations for the Board of Deacons on behalf of the Deacon Nomination Committee; BoE approved slate as presented.

10.  Board of Elders Nomination

Elder Liqin opened the floor for nominations; discussion tabled due to time constraints.

11.  Other Issues

Elder Yuguang to serve as Acting Secretary during Elder Terry’s absences during July and August BoE meetings.

Elder Terry closed with prayer at 1:39 pm.

 Addendum: BoE electronically approved the appointment by Pastor Caleb, pursuant to the recommendation of the CM-FM Pastoral Search Committee, of the CM-FM on June 21, 2014.