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!