CBCGB Board of Elders Meeting Minutes, 2016/05/14

Present: Senior Pastor Caleb Chang, Bryan Che (Secretary), Ke-Chieh Chu (Chair), David Ho, Haiguo Wu (Board of Deacons [“BoD”] Representative), Terry Yang, Ying Yuan (office admin), Eric LiKong Yang (office admin)

Absent: Yuguang He, Timothy Lu

Notes

• KC opened in prayer 9:04AM
• Brief Sharing

• Bryan shared an update on a potential ministry opportunity and also about a missionary that he and Jen hosted for a few weeks

• Update to the state of the church (Pastor Caleb Chang)

• Summer retreat registration and planning is on-going
• The English Pastor Search process is still ongoing. There is a plan in-place to provide interim support in case there is no replacement before Pastor Chuck departs
• There is a Youth Pastor candidate scheduled to visit CBCGB in June
• The Metro-South building fund drive has reached 90% of its cash goals and 50% of personal loan goals so far.

• BoE agreed to support making an announcement about Metro-South’s building fund raising at CBCGB Lexington during service and in a bulletin. We should put this into context of what CBCGB Lexington has already done to support Metro-South (purchased their property, funded and staffed pastoral support)

• CM summer sermon plan will be based on basic doctrine topics
• Seeking elders’ participation in pulpit ministry in 2017, especially during April to September when Pastor Caleb is on sabbatical
• Marina Wang has been filling in for Ruth while Ruth recovers
• The HVAC replacement project is ongoing and may cost up to $230,000. The church council will review this in the near future

• Ministry Review - Office Administration (Yuguang He in absentia/Pastor Caleb, Ying Yuan, Eric LiKong Yang)

• Current status

• Good relationships with the Lord and other co-workers
• Responsibilities for administration tasks going well, including:

• Weekly support

• Prepare CM Sunday Bulletin
• Manage information distribution
• Manage welcome process and logistics for new-comers

• Monthly support

• Translate documents
• Manage office supplies
• Posting financial reports

• Quarterly support

• Translate council meetings
• Prepare Sunday service roster
• Manage facilities maintenance

• Semester support

• Manage classroom lists
• Manage bus schedule
• Manage baptism and membership logistics

• Semi-annual support

• Support child-dedication logistics
• Support church directory database
• Support evangelism meeting logistics
• Manage church supplies

• Annual support

• Support Office Administration budgeting
• Update directories
• Support annual reports and meetings
• Support special services
• Support donation receipt  letters labelling

• Other

• Support memorial services
• Support various church logistics and special services

• Daily support

• Manage communications, delivery, cleaning

• Challenges

• Interruptions
• Telephone help
• Lots of work to serve as church information hub
• Hard to concentrate and work in an open environment
• Covering for work when someone is absent
• Music worship ministry is getting more complex
• Meeting minutes translation difficult to perform and staff

• Accomplishments

• From 2013-2015

• Published 156 Sunday bulletins
• Managed 1221 newcomers into the church database
• Kept good relationships with other ministries

• Problems and difficulties

• Overwhelming job load
• Open office environment with many interruptions
• Often receive necessary information too late
• Managing storage closet

• Requests for support

• Need helpers
• Translation

• Given how much effort it requires to translate and that there are few readers of translated meeting minutes, we will trial not translating meeting minutes for the next 6 months

• Goals

• Short-term

• Establish church-wide information system
• Establish time-cut system for event manager
• Establish office staff job cover and substitute system
• Support job training

• Mid-term

• Manage church history files and information

• Long-term

• Move to more efficient cloud-based systems
• Support multi-cultural, multi-service, multi-location logistics

• Discussion

• Office staff will provide details on what support and help they need

• Office staff will suggest who might be able to volunteer to help

• We will look into setting up additional quiet office space for workers
• We will look to staff EM, Childrens, and Youth admin support. We will ask Pastor David Eng to create a job description with input from Pastor Jennifer Lin and Pastor Steve Bowman. We will add a full-time staff member into the FY17 budget
• Church directory

• We will solicit people to provide updated contact information
• We should merge our disparate contacts databases

• Board of Deacon updates (Deacon Haiguo Wu)

• Metro-South

• Metro-South member loan will be paid off by the end of this fiscal year (FY2016)
• Metro-South will become legally independent in the next three to six months

• The finance committee will explore accepting electronic payments for non-offering transactions
• Stewardship projects

• Exploring new HVAC system
• Carriage house parking expansion starting soon
• Lower parking lot needs maintenance

• Technology updates

• New laser projector installed
• Researching new phone system

• Community Outreach Ministry - new program/budget (Elder David Ho)

• Reviewed and agreed on FY17 proposed COM budget to present to the budget planning meeting

• Proposed new ministries budget areas

• Suburban student ministry
• Community outreach
• Overseas returnees ministry

• Job Transition Ministry (Elder KC)

• Reviewed proposal to change the name and increase the scope to general marketplace ministry

• Agree with idea in principle but will request a new charter for this ministry to review
• Will ask Frank Hwang  to contact Elder Bryan to coordinate CM/EM activities in this area

• June Church Council Retreat (6/18) planning/agenda (All)

• Reviewed draft agenda for June church council retreat

• Elder Nomination (All)

• Discussed potential elder candidates

• 1:10pm Pastor Caleb closed in prayer
• Addendum: Added Peer Servants to the CBCGB partner list