March 15, 2014
中文翻譯在末後段落
Pastor Caleb reported on past and upcoming events. In particular:
- CBCGB had the most number of people at Chinese Mission Conference 2013 of all churches. Pastor Caleb particularly appreciated Pastor Sandy's leadership at the conference
- The First Night Concert of Prayer was well attended.
- There were many positive reports from the Senior High, Junior High, and ICF retreats.
- The spring Mandarin Gospel Meeting is coming up later this month.
- There was originally one marriage enrichment retreat planned this Spring in March, but due to demand and willingness of co-workers, a second one is being planned for May.
- Youth Sunday is tomorrow.
- Rev Wendell Friest is having Stephen ministry training later this year.
- On June 13-15, there is a multi-church seminar offered by Chinese Coordination Centre of World Evangelism (CCCOWE) about reaching the “Post-90” generation.
- On July 25, the “Six Turtle” (六龜) orphanage choir will be performing.
A question was asked whether the church has guidelines for inviting outside speakers/groups for special events. There is no current set of guidelines, so the pastoral staff was invited to draft a policy, noting that policies already exist regarding inviting special speakers to fellowship groups and third party facilities usage.
Pastor Caleb also reported on upcoming challenges:
- Co-workers must be selfless and humble in giving all glory and credit to God alone.
- The church must provide better disciple and leadership training.
- There are challenges to both Children’s ministry and Stephen ministry with the upcoming departure of Pastor and Mrs. Choi.
Pastor Caleb has been encouraged by caring in our fellowship groups through memorial services, personal evangelism, strong witness to seekers, and the Quincy startup fellowship.
Pastor Caleb asked for prayer for the Church Building Expansion (“CBE”) project, in particular for the re-design of 151 Spring Street in an effort to reduce costs.
Pastor Caleb provided an update to the pastoral search:
- CM fellowship pastor: The search committee has approached a candidates who will come to interview in mid-April. Please pray for this interview.
- Children’s ministry pastor: The search committee is reviewing applicants now. Please pray for a miracle that we can hire a new pastor with one month overlap with Pastor King-Fai. In light of the lack of pastoral resources, a suggestion was made to further investigate potential contingency plans in the event a new pastor cannot be hired in time.
Pastor King-Fai acknowledged the stewardship committee for quickly addressing many of the children’s ministry facility needs.
He also reported that the children’s ministry has currently filled all needs; however, more teachers are always desired as it enables teachers to rotate responsibilities and attend worship and Sunday school.
Pastor King-Fai noted that it would be best if the new Children’s ministry pastor could have a one month overlap with him. The contingency plan would be to ask another pastor or lay leader to take on the role on a transitional basis. Please pray for future Children’s ministry leadership.
The church has adopted a new more flexible staff/laptop device purchasing policy that gives staff members a yearly allowance (with a maximum cap) for all individual use hardware and software purchases. Deacon Josh requests that all laptop purchases be charged against the IT budget to enable better planning and tracking of expenditures.
The church is currently in the process of updating network infrastructure by outsourcing to a third party company. We are also considering outsourcing laptop support and network maintenance to the same company.
The BoD has agreed to install security cameras at each of the church entrances during the next two weeks. The current policy states that only the BoE will have access to the security camera feeds on an as needed basis (due to theft or requests from the Lexington police). The policy also states that feeds will be deleted after one month.
A question was asked whether cameras will be installed in the other buildings. This has to be coordinated with planned renovations to those buildings, but requests will be considered in the interim if needed.
Elder Liqin gave an overview of vision and planning discussions for 2014. The BoE vision for this year is "Leadership Through Servanthood".
The church is transitioning to new bylaws, requiring some changes to the church governance structure. Highlights include:
BoE has reviewed the loving care and finance ministries this year. Reviews of stewardship, youth, English ministry, joint worship ministries, and various church-wide policies will occur later this year.
The BoE would like to set a church vision. An upcoming prayer meeting and church council retreat will spend time on this topic. Church members are encouraged to pray for that church leadership would arrive at a divinely inspired vision for our church.
Deacon Ji-yong reported on the church’s current financial situation. He gave an overview of the various monthly financial reports generated by the finance committee.
Ji-Yong also gave an overview of the annual budget review process which will begin next month, encouraging ministry leaders to submit their budget requests on time.
Ji-yong outlined the reimbursement procedure and reminded council members that account approval officials have the sole responsibility for their budget account activity and staying within their approved budget.
Funds | Offering | Expense | Total | Cumulation |
General | $143,723 | $163,612 | -$19,889 | $269,045 |
Mission | $42,358 | $22,455 | $19,903 | $184,729 |
Capital | $357 | $4,915 | -$4,558 | $479,928* |
CBE | $40,105 | $4,300 | $35,805 | $600,349 |
SCM | $4,986 | $624 | $4,362 | $35,605 |
*Note: If subtracting church main building re-roofing budgets, the available Capital Fund will be $349,928 on February 28, 2014.
For the budget summary - up to February 28, our total expense is at 62.4%, and our total offering is at 80.4% of the total annual budget.
Elder Ke-Chieh provided a summary of the CBE project activities:
- Phase I Part 1 redesign (151 Spring Street) is complete and the church has requested new quotes from contractors. Construction is still planned to begin in April 2014.
- Phase I Part 2 (additional parking) permit application is planned to occur in April 2014.
- Town hall meetings were held to discuss Phase II and III to solicit feedback.
- CBE team will send out a church facility usage survey to ministry leaders about present and projected future facility usage to gauge how to plan Phase II and III.
- CBE has created a website and published a February newsletter to improve communication.
- As of February 28, CBE has received $622,173 in donations (62% of the goal), with $400,000 remaining over the next 10 months.