Sorry for the late update everyone. Here are the things to prepare for Sunday:
1. Please bring a firm number of how much you think you will tithe. This is so we can accurately make a budget.
2. Please bring some ideas about how we can begin our facility search.
3. Think about how we can do some "round table" type of discussions in areas where you may be. These can help us get the word out about Refuge and can also help us get some ideas of what our community needs/wants.
4. We are voting on how the leadership team is selected. Think and pray about how you feel about that.
5. Think about things we might want on a website and how we can get that made. I think webhosting is pretty cheap, like ten bucks a month, so we can definitely afford that. A good website will help us in a lot of ways.
I am excited for what God is doing among us and what he will continue to do in our world.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Tacos and Squirt
That's right. We had tacos and squirt last meeting. I think we accomplished some good things, here is a brief recap:
1. We decided that we will have members, though we may end up calling them something else. We will allow anyone to join our church, they just have to go through our new members class. However, if someone is doing something that we believe contrary to God's will or that may hurt us as a church, we will encourage them to find ways to grow and to change their behavior.
2. In addition, we will have a leadership team to help make decisions. Initially, that will consist of staff (who must first be on the leadership team) and the rest of the founding core. Their job will be to make most minor decisions, and also to help facilitate the making of major decisions (such as buying a building, calling staff, budget approval). The leadership team will have town hall meetings leading up to the major decision, then they will present to the church an issue to vote 'yes' or 'no' on. Thus, the members of the church will have ratifying power, but we will not give multiple choice.
3. The distinction between staff and leadership team will be that staff will be selected to do a specific job within our church. They will also have the potential to be paid. I would like to license and ordain those people on the staff that we call 'pastor' (such as 'small group pastor').
4. We voted that Chad will be our treasurer.
5. We eliminated deacons from our church.
6. I will email a revised bylaws/constitution to everyone ASAP.
7. We discussed the need for a different kind of church in the United States.
8. We discussed how we can be an emotionally healthy church (Peter Scazzero, by the way, was speaking in the Denver Seminary chapel today).
9. I briefly gave a synopsis of 'Simple Church.'
10. Currently our staff roster is Jessica (church clerk), Chad (church treasurer) and me (pastor). We will add a small group pastor and hopefully a music pastor before long.
I think that is most of what we discussed. Please leave comments if you have thought of anything. And please leave prayer requests or praises if you think of any.
Next week we are going to cut down 'unChristian' to 5-10 minutes. I think we can do the book justice and save time for more difficult topics. Please remember, we need everyone to contribute to discussion. I am excited for what God is doing with us, and if you think there are things I can do to improve what we are doing or anything like that, let me know.
Chris
1. We decided that we will have members, though we may end up calling them something else. We will allow anyone to join our church, they just have to go through our new members class. However, if someone is doing something that we believe contrary to God's will or that may hurt us as a church, we will encourage them to find ways to grow and to change their behavior.
2. In addition, we will have a leadership team to help make decisions. Initially, that will consist of staff (who must first be on the leadership team) and the rest of the founding core. Their job will be to make most minor decisions, and also to help facilitate the making of major decisions (such as buying a building, calling staff, budget approval). The leadership team will have town hall meetings leading up to the major decision, then they will present to the church an issue to vote 'yes' or 'no' on. Thus, the members of the church will have ratifying power, but we will not give multiple choice.
3. The distinction between staff and leadership team will be that staff will be selected to do a specific job within our church. They will also have the potential to be paid. I would like to license and ordain those people on the staff that we call 'pastor' (such as 'small group pastor').
4. We voted that Chad will be our treasurer.
5. We eliminated deacons from our church.
6. I will email a revised bylaws/constitution to everyone ASAP.
7. We discussed the need for a different kind of church in the United States.
8. We discussed how we can be an emotionally healthy church (Peter Scazzero, by the way, was speaking in the Denver Seminary chapel today).
9. I briefly gave a synopsis of 'Simple Church.'
10. Currently our staff roster is Jessica (church clerk), Chad (church treasurer) and me (pastor). We will add a small group pastor and hopefully a music pastor before long.
I think that is most of what we discussed. Please leave comments if you have thought of anything. And please leave prayer requests or praises if you think of any.
Next week we are going to cut down 'unChristian' to 5-10 minutes. I think we can do the book justice and save time for more difficult topics. Please remember, we need everyone to contribute to discussion. I am excited for what God is doing with us, and if you think there are things I can do to improve what we are doing or anything like that, let me know.
Chris
Monday, September 7, 2009
Refuge!
Ok team. We had our first ever meeting last night. We discussed various and sundry things, made some decisions and overall it was a pretty fruitful meeting. Here are some things we talked about and worked on:
1. We voted on a name. "Refuge Community Church" slightly defeated "Levi's Table" in the closest ever vote in our history. I think it would behoove us to use the name "Levi's Table" on some ministry or something because I think it does convey quite a bit of who we are/want to be.
2. Jessica Cogsdil will be our church clerk. This will be a perfect fit for her as she is very detail oriented and does a good job of taking notes.
3. We are voting on a church treasurer next week. Chad and Mary Arnold were both nominated, so they will decide who we will vote to confirm or deny. Either would do a fantastic job taking care of our money.
4. Next week we will discuss a little who will be our pastor/minister in charge of small groups. I have suggested either Grant or Tanner take on that role, and I think either would do a very good job. I think it may be something we might take a little time to think on, because we won't start small groups until June of next year. That gives us some luxury in taking our time to decide who will head that particular ministry.
5. We talked for awhile about how we will determine membership of our church or if we will. I think generally the majority favored a membership of some kind, though it was certainly not unanimous. This is something we will probably want to revisit at some point down the road. This is a large decision in the life of our church and will have a large impact down the road.
6. We are planning on voting on church bylaws/constitution next week. Please, PLEASE read them before then and take some notes. It will be much more fruitful if we are all prepared for that.
7. We talked about trying to find someone to lead our music. Let's keep that in our prayers.
8. We talked about everyone coming up with a number of what they can tithe every month and bringing it in next week. This will help us to make a budget and decide what kinds of things we can afford to do as a church.
9. We talked about facility search. This is something that I think we need to touch on again periodically. If we don't have specific tasks then nothing will get done.
10. We discussed briefly the procedure for establishing ourselves as a non-profit company. This is something we really need to do sooner rather than later.
11. I mentioned that I would like us to be a staff led church. I think many times that has been a bad proposition, but I think for who we want to be it would be a good thing. It would simplify our structure and make our church policy much better, in my opinion. We did not nail that down, it will be part of our ongoing bylaws discussion.
12. We discussed some fund-raising. I think most of us are against fund-raising in general, but if you happen to know people who would like to tithe to us for awhile, that would be awesome.
I think that is most of it, though certainly not all. Please post some thoughts, and remember, the best way for us to find what is right is sometimes to argue. It is good to disagree, as long as we can do it peacefully and lovingly. I am excited to be on this journey with all of you... looking forward to what God does in us, through us and with us!
1. We voted on a name. "Refuge Community Church" slightly defeated "Levi's Table" in the closest ever vote in our history. I think it would behoove us to use the name "Levi's Table" on some ministry or something because I think it does convey quite a bit of who we are/want to be.
2. Jessica Cogsdil will be our church clerk. This will be a perfect fit for her as she is very detail oriented and does a good job of taking notes.
3. We are voting on a church treasurer next week. Chad and Mary Arnold were both nominated, so they will decide who we will vote to confirm or deny. Either would do a fantastic job taking care of our money.
4. Next week we will discuss a little who will be our pastor/minister in charge of small groups. I have suggested either Grant or Tanner take on that role, and I think either would do a very good job. I think it may be something we might take a little time to think on, because we won't start small groups until June of next year. That gives us some luxury in taking our time to decide who will head that particular ministry.
5. We talked for awhile about how we will determine membership of our church or if we will. I think generally the majority favored a membership of some kind, though it was certainly not unanimous. This is something we will probably want to revisit at some point down the road. This is a large decision in the life of our church and will have a large impact down the road.
6. We are planning on voting on church bylaws/constitution next week. Please, PLEASE read them before then and take some notes. It will be much more fruitful if we are all prepared for that.
7. We talked about trying to find someone to lead our music. Let's keep that in our prayers.
8. We talked about everyone coming up with a number of what they can tithe every month and bringing it in next week. This will help us to make a budget and decide what kinds of things we can afford to do as a church.
9. We talked about facility search. This is something that I think we need to touch on again periodically. If we don't have specific tasks then nothing will get done.
10. We discussed briefly the procedure for establishing ourselves as a non-profit company. This is something we really need to do sooner rather than later.
11. I mentioned that I would like us to be a staff led church. I think many times that has been a bad proposition, but I think for who we want to be it would be a good thing. It would simplify our structure and make our church policy much better, in my opinion. We did not nail that down, it will be part of our ongoing bylaws discussion.
12. We discussed some fund-raising. I think most of us are against fund-raising in general, but if you happen to know people who would like to tithe to us for awhile, that would be awesome.
I think that is most of it, though certainly not all. Please post some thoughts, and remember, the best way for us to find what is right is sometimes to argue. It is good to disagree, as long as we can do it peacefully and lovingly. I am excited to be on this journey with all of you... looking forward to what God does in us, through us and with us!
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