A Letter from Pastor Mark July 2013
Dear Friends,
There have been a couple of changes in staffing at the church that you may have read
about in the bulletin, received a letter or seen something in the monthly newsletter.
Even though these changes have been publicized, I want to devote my monthly letter
to saying a few words about the rationale for these changes and how the changes can
potentially benefit the church.
Under the new church structure, the Leadership Team has developed Guiding
Principles. Those Guiding Principles are the guidelines for how ministry should be
conducted on a day-to-day basis. Some of those guidelines instruct me and the staff
to be ever vigilant about the financial condition of the church and how we use financial
resources. The staff and I take the responsibility very seriously, and so we are looking
for ways to be more efficient in distributing and using all the resources of the church,
money included.
Previously, we have had a weekday children’s ministries staff, and then we have has a
children’s ministries director who would primarily work with the children’s church and
other general children’s ministries. We have come to the conclusion that to approach
children’s ministry in a fragmented manner is neither efficient nor a good use of
resources. So, all children’s ministries are being take care of by two full-time staff
members. Allyson Ball is the Director of Children’s Ministries and April Patterson is
the Assistant Director of Children’s Ministries. They oversee ALL children’s
ministries, including Imagination Station, Children’s Church, Vacation Bible School
and any other ministry that pertains to children in the life of the church. Now, all
children’s ministries are integrated, and there is total cooperation and sharing of
resources. This is also a much more effective use of staff. This area oversees the
scheduling of child care for meetings and Bible studies in the church as well.
Recently, we became aware that we could contract with an outside company to provide for our custodial services for the church building and save considerable financial resources. We have decided to go that route. We will still have a person present each Sunday morning to help with various issues (clean-up emergencies etc.), and this person will be scheduled to do room set-ups for meetings and special events. However, if you need set-up assistance, you will need to inform Tara Walters in the church office in advance of that need. We will be glad to schedule our set-up person to do that for you, but the person will not be on site on a daily basis. They will work only when we have a need, and we will then schedule them to perform the set-up.
This change will enable us to free up considerable financial resources as well as free existing staff members from the supervision responsibilities they had over our custodial staff. This move is not a commentary on the former custodial staff. We appreciate their work and their efforts to keep the building clean and presentable. Moving to a cleaning service enables us to use our resources in a more efficient and cost-effective manner.
These changes should make no difference in how ministry ultimately happens on a daily basis, but these changes will give us the opportunity to re-allocate resources in a way that will help us fulfill our mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ.
These changes will require some adjustments from all of us but will lead us toward greater efficiency and a more prudent use of available resources.
In Christ’s Abundant Love,
Pastor Mark