COUNCIL MINUTES -- NOVEMBER 13, 2008

• Lighting of the Christ Candle
• Praise and Thanksgiving

• Secretary's report: M/S/P (Trapp/Smith) to approve as read the minutes of 10/9/08.
• Financial report: M/S/P (Holmen/Lueck) to approve October 2008 report as presented by Treasurer, Tim Bergin.

• Confession and forgiveness
• Scripture and response

• The Memorial Garden and Columbarium board. M/S/P (Holmen/Larson).
  
• Application for Memorial Wall plaques. M/S/P (Lueck/Smith).
• Administration of funds and perpetual care. Both policies approved, one motion. M/S/P (Larson/Ingvoldstad).

• Staff
• Personnel and I have completed annual staff reviews for those under my supervision. Pastor Bruce and I and a Personnel Committee member will be doing Children’s Ministry and Dir. of Youth and Family Ministries reviews next week. After this first time, because Pastor Bruce has  been here but a few months, I will not be sitting in on those reviews, unless necessary. 
• Staff is taking Sally Hodgson out to “How can we thank you enough!” lunch next week. It became evident that before our former Office Manager left, things had fallen into some disarray. More than simply keeping the office functioning, Sally helped reorganize and trouble-shoot. On behalf of the whole Congregation, we are deeply grateful.
• Pastor Bruce and I are getting to know one another, and will continue to set aside time for that purpose. I am delighted with his work and our partnership so far.
• Lifelong Learning
• Sunday morning Adult Forums continue to go very well. Not only in terms of attendance/participation, but members are thanking the Lifelong Learning team members for starting them up again. If there are topics or Scripture texts of interest to you for such a forum, let me know.
• Spiritual Gifts Discovery Workshops - Great attendance and participation. Participants agreed they would like to go further with it. Will be working to offer these again, and some follow-up, in 2009.
• Journey Together Faithfully, Parts 1&2 (ELCA congregational study materials on areas of  human sexuality). Six weeks and going very well.  A variety of viewpoints among participants. Open, honest, sometimes passionate conversation - always respectful and loving in what is a difficult topic. Makes me proud to be a pastor at LCC!
• Action Item: Pastor On-Call. Pastor Bruce and I recommend LCC purchase a cell phone (pay-as-you-go or “debit” style) to use as THE pastor-on-call number and phone. Rather than having our two cell phone numbers on our respective voice mails, or having to change it on the main voice mail depending on who is on call, we suggest having one phone, one number. Whoever is on call carries the phone. Less confusing to members, easier for us and Council. M/S/P (Smith/Both).
• Nominating Committee: The Committee will have a completed slate of nominees for Council positions by next week. Since it was very difficult trying to find two people willing to “run against each other” for positions last year, they went back to the more traditional one person per position.
• Vacation: I am keeping two weeks of 2008 vacation
  

• Focus on Evangelism
• Twenty-eight new members scheduled to join on November 23rd.
• Exploring ways of setting up an evangelism committee.
• Two members have indicated they would like to call on inactive members.
• Exploring program(s) to equip all members for evangelism.
• Visitation of potential new members - lay and pastoral.

• Focus on New Member Classes
        Looking at expanding our new member classes to 4-8 sessions.

• Focus on Stephen Ministry

• Focus on Education
           Curriculum Task Force, Children’s Ministry, Confirmation, Senior Youth Program.

• Focus on Getting Folks “Plugged-in”
          Looking at ways to get more members plugged in to ministries that let them
          use their spiritual gifts/passions.
  

• Interior painting completed. Thanks to all who helped.
• Roof Inspection - Had roofs inspected. The sanctuary roof will need repair in the next few years.
• Sanctuary skylight is deteriorating somewhat. Still serviceable.
• Parsonage - Radon tested - Results are ok. Septic has been pumped.

• Children's Choir - Jennifer Pelowski has formed a children’s choir for grades 4 through 6.
   The choir is meeting on Wednesdays at 7:00 p.m. in the choir loft.
• Senior Choir - The annual Christmas presentation “A Festival of Lessons and Carols” will be on December 14th at both services.
  

• Interfaith Hospitality Network (IHN)
  
  •  Hosting week went well with 16 guests, 8 children (6 under the age of 3½).
  •  A special thanks to Jane Nemitz for co-hosting with me.
  •  Need to heat the rooms better at night.
  •  Next hosting dates (2009):
       Jan. 4 - 11.
       May 31 - June 6.
       August 30 - September 6.
       November 22 - 29 (Thanksgiving).
       Feb. 28 - March 7 (2010).
  • We will collect gifts for families for Christmas as we did last year. We will have six families. A display with gift list requests will be set up during Advent. Gifts need to be at Church by December 14th. 
    
• Name Tags. My plan is to turn this over to Joy Walter, Office Manager, immediately.

• Advent Festival - December 7th.
• Children’s Christmas Program - December 21st (second service).

• Office Hours - Current church office hours are 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Committee proposes to change the hours from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with the Office Manager taking a half-hour lunch away from her desk. Council discussion - M/S/P (Bergin/Holmen).

• Tim Bergin provided a briefing of activity/planning to this point. Two forums were held - very good discussion at both forums.

• The funeral-serving committees have many willing workers, but we need to identify some more leaders. We’re planning a brainstorming and reorganizing meeting the first part of January.

• First of all, thank you to all who helped prepare the parsonage for occupancy. It is looking very good. Clint Baker has been retained as Property Manager for the parsonage and has already located a tenant. The family will move in on or near November 20th. Final work, to be done soon, includes replacing two windows and adding a deck off the kitchen sliding door.
  

  Contact us:
Lutheran Church of the Cross
On Hiway 13 just east of Hiway 371 at Sportland Corner
P.O. Box 29
Nisswa, MN 56468
Phone: 218/963-2564   Fax: 218/963-0294
Email: lcc@lccnisswa.org