Board of Elders (“BoE”) Meeting Minutes

July 12, 2014

Date/time: 9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., 7/12/2014

Location: CBCGB church office

Attendees: Liqin Chen, KC Chu, Ming-Chih Ho, Timothy Lu, Ming-Jer Tsai, Yuguang He, Ji-Min Xiong

Absentees: Terry Yang, Caleb Chang

Opening prayer: Liqin Chen

Elders’ Sharing:

• KC’s sharing the experience in CBET with the Lexington Town new building commissioner (bureaucracy), including the additional requirements for merging two properties, and minor site plan review.
• Ming’s introducing the book, “Monday with my old pastor” by Jose Lius Navajo, explaining the meaning of the cross from various aspects

Senior Pastor’s report (by Liqin based on Caleb’s report)

• Pastoral search: CM pastor being processed in HRC preparing offering package
• Vision prayer meeting:

• the first CM weekly prayer meeting for church vision scheduled on 7/22/2014

• Short-term mission
• Pray for good partner church for future Hopi youth STM.
• Annual pastoral review: ongoing
• 7/25: pray for the Six-turtle choir and pastor Chang Chong-Pei’s spiritual revival
• CM congregation spiritual revival camp: tentatively agreed with Roger William over the memorial weekend, 2015. KC, authorized by BoE, will go with Ji-Yong to negotiate with Roger William for the best price. Full support from the youth ministry has been committed.
• 7/12 (today):

• farewell for pastor Zhi-Qiu Xu at Worcester
• several church revival meetings during the month of July and August

• Prayer for church in China and the situation with tightening policy toward Christianity. For BoD, the internet connection has been interrupted by lightening multiple times, suggested to move the cables underground
• Pastor Caleb Huang from Rutgers has become the senior pastor in Atlanta

BoD Report (Ji-Min Xiong)

• About 20K for mini-van, with the purpose for church general use.
• Handicap parking flexible based on demand

Metro-South (MS) Report (Guan Hong-Su, Pastor Wei Jiang):

• Attendees has been increased from 30 to 70 since the worship moved from Sunday afternoon to morning, every time with new comers
• Main concern: space limit has been peaked on Fridays’, especially in one basement room (28ftx36ft) with 30+ children, in AWANA, raising safety concerns and  the risk of rejecting new comers
• Youth program is healthy with 10+ participants, even with Angie’ temporary leave
• Four fellowships gathering in one hall with separation as temporary solution, but preferred to consider other options for growth
• Vision, Plan and process:

• vigorously looking for land and facilities for independency
• current facilities have their own limitation and the hosting church is not yet willing to commit to sell
• Expecting 2-3 years to reach full capacity

• Rental fee was low with promise of 3 years with the initial financial support in renovating the church (FBC) basement, facilitating the summer uses
• Friday nights alternatives were considered but unavailable
• Propose that the mother church to establish a building fund for Metro-South
• Suggestions and Questions from BoE:

• Any other alternatives for gathering other than Friday nights in the near term?

• Very difficult, facing challenges in culture and life-style

• Criteria set originally for independence should be revisited after a few years. More details would be helpful to the mother church’s decision in support
• In addition to being independent, the Campus-model similar to Grace Chapel’s or the affiliation model similar to denominations should be evaluated by the BOE.
• Any surplus from Metro-South can be allocated to the building fund, encouraging ownership
• Encouraging the MS members to consider the financial reality of self-support
• Mother church matching program to support the building fund of Metro-South, from learning the experience of Metro-West, allocating a portion from the general offering to the building fund for Metro-South
• Upside and downside of the independency
• Suggested to keep open communication between Metro-South and BoE

• Concerns:

• Membership
• Property search
• Financial expense and support
• Whether follow the model of Metro-West
• Urgency (3-5 years or more)
• BoE vision and support
• Number of attendees

• Goal: Self-reliance, since many ministries are quite independent
• Complexity: Other needs, e.g., COM’s needs

BOE’s decision on Metro-South Proposal

• BOE agrees to have a Metro-South building fund with resources from the surplus of Metro-South general fund donation, plus matching from the mother church general fund surplus up to 25% of the Metro-South surplus, starting from FY2015

Reminders of BoE Responsibilities

• BoE was reminded that OCR is needed from Pastoral staff twice a year
• BoE was reminded to approve on the qualification to outside ministry by pastoral staff, including short-term missions, based on “Personnel Policy and Administrative Staff” item 1.2.12

Church visioning

• Discussed how to promote prayer meetings with larger church-wide audience, including EM, CM and Church wide

• BoE should promote the prayer meeting with support from pastoral staff
• Inviting all fellowship leaders for the prayer meeting to promote prayers from all church members
• Plan for Church wide prayer (Concert of prayer)
• The purpose is to bring all the church together in the process

• Visioning Process

• BoE agreed on the following process
• Church-wide prayers CM, EM, CC , and Church wide (concert of prayer)
• BoE will come up with initial proposal and communicate with Pastoral staff for feedback, make necessary revisions. The same cycle will be made for CC members, and finally for entire church.
• Finalizing vision and mission statement tentatively within a year

Policy Review

• BoE reviewed two policies on seminary student scholarship and support for vocational Christian ministry coworkers.

• BoE suggests to Clarify approval process on scholarship and internship - missing from the policy

• By following the same procedure of other same policies, i.e., Senior pastor’s approval upon BoE’s review – to be formalized as a policy

• Time-line of proposals: expected within a month from the pastoral staff as the draft, to be presented and reviewed in the next BoE meeting
• As a parallel approach, BoE suggests to explore the feasibility of establishing an Independent local mission committee to handle the supports to the parachurch workers.

• [action item]: Ming forwards to BOE the document which describes the various phases of integrating the mission committee and the social concerns committee
• [action item]: Ming-Chih will provide a proposal to establish a Local Mission Committee

CBE Updates

• Demolition permit and building permit expected to be approved by the end of July for 151 rebuild, Hazardous material identified, and the removal of it will cost additional $8,662
• Church facility usage survey analysis underway
• At the end of June close to $700,000 has been raised from the start of fundraising about 2 years ago.  Healthy donation rate but needs promotion to reach the goal of one million dollar by the end of the year.

DNC Reports

• Pray for all the candidates for their seeing the Lord’s guidance in serving the church sacrificially

Other business:

• Pray for NY mission led by Jennifer
• PTL for Hopi led by Sandy in growing in all the challenges and being a living testimony for the Lord in preaching the Gospel to the needy, for the safe trip and high spirit in the Lord

Closing Prayer: Yuguang He

长老团会议纪要

时间：2014年7月12日上午9点至12点30分

地点：CBCGB教会办公室

与会：陈利钦、朱克潔、何明治、盧忠信、蔡明哲、何煜光、熊继敏

缺席：楊德禮、章開第

开会祷告：陈利钦

长老分享

• 朱克潔介绍了他和Lexington市政负责新建筑的专员讨论关于CBET合并两处地产的附加要求和次要计划。
• 蔡明哲介绍了Jose Lius Navajo的一本书，该书从不同角度解释了十字架的意义。

主任牧师报告（陈利钦，基于章开第的报告）：

• 聘牧：人事委员会为聘任华语事工牧师准备有关文件。
• 异象祷告会

• 第一次每周的华语堂教会异象祷告会定于2014年7月22日。

• 短宣: 为未来的Hopi青少年短宣合作教会祷告。
• 年度教牧人员评议：进行中。
• 7月25日：为六龟合唱团和张宗培牧师培灵会祷告。
• 华语堂培灵营会：Roger William初步同意在 2015年“纪念日”周末举行。受长老团授权，朱克潔将和王继勇与Roger William协商最佳租金。青少年事工承诺提供全面支持。
• 7月12日（当日）：

• 在Worcester为徐志秋（Zhi-Qiu Xu）牧师送别。
• 在7月和8月举行的几个教会培灵会。

• 为中国大陆教会祷告，他们正在面临针对基督教的紧缩政策。
• 为执事会祷告，互联网已经被雷电干扰中断多次，建议将网络电缆移至地下。
• Rutgers教会Caleb Huang牧师在Atlanta就任主任牧师。

执事会报告( 熊继 敏)：

• 大约2万美元用于购买小型客车，供教会日常使用。
• 根据需要设置残障停车位。

南区植堂报告（关洪书、韦江牧师）：

• 自从崇拜从主日下午移到上午后参加敬拜的人数从30人增加到70人，每次都有新人。
• 主要问题：空间不足在周五最严重，特别是在28尺x 36尺见方的地下室里要容纳30人以上的儿童参加AWANA，出现安全问题和无法容纳新参加者的问题。
• 青少年项目健康发展，即便是在Angie暂时不在的情况下参加者仍在10人以上。
• 作为临时的解决方案， 4个团契在一个大厅里隔开聚会，但为了增长最好考虑其它方案。
• 异象、计划和实施过程

• 为独立努力寻找土地和设施。
• 现设施有它自己的限度，借用的教会不愿意出售。
• 预期在2-3年内满员。

• 低租金3年合同，附加初始经费装修教会地下室以便于夏季使用。
• 曾考虑周五晚的替代方案，但条件不具备。
• 提议母堂为南区植堂设立建堂基金。
• S长老团的建议和问题

• 除周五聚会外，近期内有无其它替代方案？

• 非常困难，要面临文化和生活方式的挑战。

• 最初定的独立标准，在几年后要重新评估。提供更多细节有助于母堂做决定。
• 除了独立以外，也可以考虑像Grace Chapel那样的分堂模式，将由长老团评估。
• 南区奉献的余额可以拨到南区的建堂基金里，鼓励所有权。
• 鼓励南区植堂会友考虑教会自立的财政现实性。
• 作为母堂支持南区建堂经费的匹配项目，根据西区植堂的经验，母堂从常费奉献中拨出一部分作为南区建堂经费。
• 独立的利弊。
• 建议南区植堂和长老团保持交流。

• 问题：

• 会友
• 寻找资产
• 花费和支持
• 是否采用西区植堂模式。
• 紧迫性（3-5年或更久）
• 长老团的看法和支持
• 参加人数

• 目标：自立，因为许多事工是相当独立的。
• 复杂性：其它需求，例如华语堂的需求等。

长老团对南区植堂提案的决议

• 长老团同意从2015财经年开始设立南区建堂基金, 来源为南区奉献余额. 母堂从常费基金余额中拨款匹配南区植堂奉献余额的25%。

长老团职责：

• 教牧人员需要提交OCR, 每年两次
• 根据“人事政策和管理人员”条款第1.2.12条，长老团有义务审批教牧人员外部事工资格，包括短宣。

教会异象：

• 讨论了如何促进更大的教会范围祷告会，包括英语堂、华语堂和教会范围。

• 长老团应该在教牧人员支持下推动祷告会。
• 邀请团契领袖参加祷告会推动全教会会众参加祷告。
• 全教会祷告计划（同步祷告）
• 目的是在这个过程中带领全教会合一。

• 教会异象寻求步骤

• 长老团同意以下步骤：
• 全教会祷告，华语堂、英语堂、联会、以及全教会（同步祷告）。
• 长老团将提出初步建议，和教牧人员交流听取反馈，做必要的修改。将和联会成员, 并最终和全教会重复这一过程。
• 在一年内确立初步的教会的异象和使命宣言。

政策审议：

• 长老团审议了两项关于神学生奖学金和支持专职基督事工同工的政策。

• 长老团建议阐明在神学生奖学金政策中加入批准过程 。

• 按照与其它政策的相同程序，即主任牧师的批准并经长老团同意。

• 提交建议的时限：期望在一个月内由教牧人员提交草案，提交下一次长老团会议审议。
• 作为一个并行途径，长老团建议，探索设立一个独立的当地宣教委员会的可行性，处理支持教会辅助同工的事宜。

• 蔡明哲向长老团提交文件，阐述整合宣教委员会和社会关怀委员会的若干阶段。
• 何明治将提交设立当地宣教委员会的建议。

教会扩建项目进展：

• 151拆除许可和建设许可预期在7月底获得批准。发现有害物质，附加清除费用8662美元。
• 教会场地使用调查分析正在进行中。
• 截止到6月底，奉献接近70万美元。尽管是个健康的数字，但为在年底达到1百万的目标，仍需要推动。

执事提名委员会报告：

• 为所有的候选人祷告，为他们在教会牺牲侍奉中看见主的引导祷告。

Other business: 其它事务：

• 为Jennifer带领的纽约宣教祷告。
• 为 Sandy带领的Hopi短宣队感恩，他们在挑战中成长、向有需求的人传福音成为主的活的见证。

结束祷告：何煜光