That sentence may sound a little odd to you because you are used to hearing about the Church Council but, as of January 1, 2022, the Leadership Board replaced the Church Council. Some of you may be thinking this is just another name change but there is more to it than that. In this note, I’d like to briefly explain why we made the change as well as provide some highlights from the Leadership Board’s first two meetings.
So why did we change? The most basic answer is that we needed to change to reflect the fact that we are a relatively small congregation and had to find a way to streamline how we governed ourselves. The old Church Council system had the Council and several committees—such as Finance, Staff-Parish Relations and Trustees—which met independently and then reported to the council. This often resulted in asking people to attend several different meetings each month to serve on the various committees. This placed unnecessary demands on people’s time and was terribly inefficient because, in many cases, the same people were being asked to make the same decision multiple times—just in different meetings.
Under the Leadership Board, the members of the Board serve in several capacities at once and the items are discussed and decided up at a single monthly Leadership Board meeting. In addition to the practical benefits of this change, and probably more importantly, by improving our efficiency we hope to free ourselves to think more spiritually and strategically about the direction of the church; What God is calling Faith United Methodist Church to be and do.
As you might expect, our first two meetings have largely been focused on how the Leadership Board will operate.
We’ve approved a Covenant that sets the expectations for the Leadership Board members and guiding principles that set the general parameters for how the Board will conduct itself. In creating the guiding principles, we realized that there were places where the church lacked policies needed to set the procedures for how we will act and make decisions in specific areas such as employee relations, building use and financial controls. Where we did have such policies, most of them were fairly old and had not been reviewed recently.
So, the Leadership Board created teams to draft or review the policies and then bring them to a Board meeting for approval. The Board also discussed how we should communicate what we are doing with you.
This note is part of that plan—you should expect them monthly—as is setting aside a brief time before worship once a month to share with the congregation.
That said, please know that you are always welcome to attend the monthly meeting. We would love to see you there!
Tuesday April 8th from 6:30 to 8:00
Located in the Founders Hall.
All are welcome.
We hope to see you there!
It hasn’t all been about policies and procedures. In our first meeting, the Leadership Board recognized that online worship is not only here to stay but offers us an opportunity to reach people who probably wouldn’t come to the church for worship. The Board further recognized that the system we have in place for making online worship available is not sustainable in the long term and wouldn’t allow us to grow in this area. With that in mind, the Leadership Board authorized a small team to explore the options for online worship and come back to the Board with a recommendation for how Faith UMC should proceed in this area. I’ve already gone on a bit longer than I had intended so I will wrap it up here.
My final comment would be, please do not hesitate to share any concerns or thoughts you might have on where you feel God is leading Faith UMC. We are serving in leadership roles but the church is all of us together and only when we communicate and work together can we make the most progress toward our mission to “make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.”
Members of the Faith United Methodist Church Leadership Board
John Jacobs – Chair
Terry Coddington
Floyd Makle
Miguel Palacio
Temple Palacio
Karen Stern
Carolyn Vaughn