St. Luke Lutheran Church

Church Council MeetingAgenda – Thursday, February 25, 2016 @ 6:30pm

Invited Attendees:

Kerri Ast / x / Gale Holm / x
Carolyn Byrd / x / Chris Ojstrsek / x
Cherie Callies / x / Pr. Matthew Short / x
Andy Doberstein / x / Steve Stollberg / x
John Heidke / x / Terry Wussow / x
  1. Opening / Devotion – John Heidke The “Jesus painter” video
  1. Feedback to Council - Jody King Provided her testimony,gave insights and thoughts to Council pertaining to her personal experiences over the past few years with youth programming at St. Luke, including the process of reinventing youth ministry at St. Luke via Poppy’s termination, the GenZ team and Marie’s hiring. She also included her ideas on how to move forward without repeating mistakes made in the past - ideas for Personnel team. Her notes are attached at the end of this document.
  1. Welcome of New Council Members Chris & John
  2. Introductions
  3. Review of Council “Job Descriptions” Descriptions are available on website. In depth discussion on Council “norms” presented by Pr. Matt:

■meet once/mo

■reporting of teams to council

  1. liason was used in the past
  2. Now written reports are being encouraged, minimally done each quarter in a format similar to how staff reports to council.

■Anyone (including Council members) can contact council through Chris suggested a “feedback loop” acknowledging receipt of communication to council. Pastor agreed that it could be done by anyone on Council. Also it was discussed that Council needs to present 3 key topics to the congregation after each monthly meeting.(I added this under “new business” to remind us next meeting)

■Confidentiality

■Meetings are generally open for anyone to attend

■Members are spiritual elders, leaders demonstrated by worship attendance and financial support

■Council needs to build group covenant (added as future agenda item)

■Members are voted as representatives of the congregation, they are entrusted to be the “voice of the congregation”, therefore agendas do not need to be posted prior to meeting, but minutes do need to be posted. Congregational members with concerns should be encouraged to speak directly to council verbally or in writing. Encourage healthy communication.

  1. Leadership Minute – Pastor Matt (see above)
  1. Church Council Officers - Nominations and Election

■President: Carolyn Byrd - Gale moved to nominate, Kerri seconded, passed unanimous, motion carried

■VP: Gale moved to nominate John, John declined. Steve moved to nominate Terry, Kerri seconded, passed unanimously, motion carried.

■Sec and Treasurer were opened to self nomination by Pastor. No one stepped forward for Secretary.

■Secretary: Gale moved to nominate Andy, Kerri seconded, passed unanimously, motion carried

■Treasurer: Steve said he would be open to continuing on with another term. Chris expressed interest for 2017. Terry moved to nominate Steve, Carolyn seconded, motion carried unanimously

  1. Review and Approval of Minutes
  2. 1/12/16 Council Meeting
  3. 1/31/16 Annual Meeting (not formally approving, but making sure needed feedback is given to Lee) Andy raised concern that the financial discussion of available funds for flooring was not correctly reflected in the minutes.
  1. Continuing Resolution to revise Personnel Team Definition

In order to move forward with the recommended changes to the Personnel Team Charter, Andy moved to amend the continuing resolution to the by-laws in regards to this. Steve seconded, motion passed unanimously. The revised charter will now be posted.

  1. New Business
  2. Easter Sunday Service Proposal After much discussion of pros and cons of various options it was decided for 7:00, 8:30 and 10:30 worship times, with AW at 10:30. Concern was raised that the message being sent was that AW was permanently taking over the 10:30 time slot. Being that Easter would be the 4th Sunday, it would be somewhat logical to leave AW at 10:30 instead of moving it to one of the earlier services just for Easter, but no decision has been made about whether there will be a permanent AW time slot.
  3. Staff Reports attached

■Pastor Matt

■Marie (sent on 2/15/16)

■Shelly

■Michelle

  1. Financial Reports - Steve Stollberg (handouts) Gale moved to accept, Andy seconded, motion carried unanimously
  2. Upcoming Meetings:

■Monthly Council Meetings Pastor requested that devotions focus on our personal testimonies: when did Jesus become the real deal for you? When did he win your heart?

  1. March ______none______(opening devotion ______)
  2. April ____4th______(opening devotion Terry______)
  3. May ______9______(opening devotion ___TBD______)

■Church Council Mini-Retreat --- ___Pastor will send doodle poll______

e. 3 Key topics from this meeting

  1. Future Agenda Items
  2. February 2016 Meeting:
  1. Updates from previous meetings:
  2. Church Sign Update – Steve Stollberg / Lana Bjorklund (Ric Hartman)
  3. Lower Level Flooring Estimate Update – Steve Stollberg
  4. Photo Directory Update – Terry Wussow
  5. Medical Emergency Procedure – Kerri Ast
  6. Council Retreat Agenda:
  1. Council’s Communication / Collaboration Covenant
  2. Council Book Club Discussion:Not Your Parent’s Offering Plate --- all
  3. Meet & Greet with Pastor Howard
  4. Other ideas?
  1. Internal Endowment
  2. Policy Manual Updates
  3. Gifting (to staff from congregational members) policy
  4. Council covenant
  1. Closing – Summary of Action Items and Closing Prayer

John moved to adjourn. Andy seconded. Passed unanimously.Meeting adjourned 8:45 pm .

Meeting minutes respectfully submitted by Cherie Callies

Jody King’s presentation to Council:

I just wanted to come to council to share some thoughts with you all. First of all I would like to share the beautiful things I have seen since Marie has joined our ministry. When we wrote her job description never did we think we would be able to fill it. We thought it was our ideal person and could only be filled by Jesus himself. I am happy to say that Marie not only fills it but brings many gifts we weren’t even expecting. In the time she has been with us I have seen some wonderful things. First I see a Bible study group that not only increased in numbers but in depth. We have 9-18 kids coming every other week to talk about deep issues. These kids deal with things we never had to as kids. They deal with atheism on a daily basis. Many times that is a recurring topic. I have had the pleasure of observing the group from time to time and I am pleased to tell you that this group has grown a very special trust between its members. On one occasion I walked into the talk of transgender. You could see these kids were really struggling but felt safe and loved and that they could ask any questions in this group. Another instance is the study sessions we had at semester. It started with two nights with over 40 kids each night. A little more than half were members and the others nonmembers. Then she increased and had two more nights. I saw kids that I hadn’t seen since their confirmation and now they are seniors. It was sad to know we hadn’t had anything for them the last few years but I was glad to see them return. We also showed God’s love to many nonmembers. Marie - Cares deeply for quality programming and what we offer at church Deeply cares for our kids Already has shown she deeply cares for our community (attending games, concerts, dances, and most recently supporting the students through a suicide and a cancer diagnosis) Lastly she cares about her volunteers which will be an important roll for her continued growth and success in her ministry. The other reason I stopped by was something that is a little more difficult for me to talk about. I feel like I need to tell the story of my past. The whole Poppy situation was incredibly stressful on me and I want to make sure that we can look back on the past and that we as a church have learned from it. For those of you that don’t know me, I have helped teach/lead Sunday school her for 11 years. I served on council and during that time we hired Poppy. After the first year of her being hired I started hearing complaints from parents. I myself did not have a high school student and at that time her job was primarily focused on High School. I took those concerns to Pastor though. Then my oldest daughter’s class got confirmed. Even at the confirmation I heard rumblings of unhappiness and that there will be nothing for these kids. At that time I made a promise to start paying attention and to fight for these kids if I needed to. They are an amazing group that don’t only have good kids but active parents. That winter/spring after seeing nothing being done for these kids, my heart began to hurt. I again took my concerns to Pastor. Then as most of you know the Gen Z task force was started the following fall. I decided to give it my all and if nothing happened for the kids, to reevaluate after that. That process was very stressful and long. Many nights I came to those meetings with my stomach in knots and I wish I would have kept track of the amount of hours I dedicated to this because I think it would have been staggering. During the whole year or more, I felt very singled out (even though I knew many, many families felt this way) I felt some people were mad at me and still feel today that some people don’t like me because of it. I felt conflicted. This church was the church where I choose to raise my children. These were the families and community that I wanted to help support my kids and myself. However, if there was nothing for them to increase their spiritual side - DO I STAY?? Were there good things that came out of the hard, long process. Yes - The Bible study would not have started if it wasn’t for this process. It was an idea that Brian brought to Poppy and said he would run if she helped get it started (remember at this time, Brian was teaching Sunday School and I was leading Sunday school). Nothing happened. After the Gen Z team met with the High School students, Pastor Tom told us that we had to take one of their suggestions and make it a reality. So we did it on our own and it has and continues to be such a blessing for us and for our family. We love how the kids just walk into our home with out knocking and make themselves at home. We love that they want to stay and talk and we have to push them out at the end of the night. We love the trust we have built. My faith also grew. I turned to the Bible and Bible studies many morning after restless nights of frustration and a hurting heart. My faith grew as the study I was reading seemed to always speak to the problem I felt like I was facing. So looking back even though their were positives and maybe everything happened in the right time frame - since we ended up with Marie. I still felt like the process was flawed. I am troubled that it seemed like no one in leadership knew the job was not being done. We confirmed class after class with nothing to offer them after confirmation. The Christian Ed Team fell apart and no longer met at all, after I stopped running it and nobody seemed to care. Sunday school was growing and thriving with no support from the staff. Moving forward I have some suggestions on how the process might be improved. I haven’t read through minutes so not sure if any steps had been taken to improve the process already. * First having not just Pastor provide feedback on staff but also members/volunteers that work closely with that staff or in that area of ministry. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to hear success stories like the ones we are seeing with Marie. * Personnel Team needs to be more visible. Not all concerns should go through Pastor. During this process Pastor and my relationship was very strained. Which wasn’t fair. It is still taking time to rebuild trust. If I could have turned to the Personnel team I still could of had a Pastor during this difficult process. * Since Personnel is such a vital role and given much responsibility those positions should rotate and have term limits. Especially since these positions are not voted on. * Lastly and probably most importantly (in my opinion) - One of the most important roles of personnel is to keep job descriptions updated. Poppy’s was vague and challenging, to say the least. How could we evaluate her based on that. Even Marie’s should be revised and changed based on her gifts and what needs we have as a church. Then we also need to make sure we are compensating based on how the job descriptions are changed. Thanks for letting me share my thoughts and feelings. Thank you for supporting youth ministry. It is near and dear to my heart. Lastly thank you for Marie. She is a true blessing to my family, our church and our community.

St. Luke Church Council Meeting Minutes_February 25, 2016Page 1