Words from Thomas

Thomas Kleinert

On Saturday morning, more than forty of our leaders – official board members, deacons, and elders – met for a planning retreat in the fellowship hall. We looked at the entire year at Vine Street, and talked about all the events between February 2009 and January 2010. We assigned dates and the names of individual leaders or groups who will spearhead each. The list was broken down into weekly, monthly, and annual events, as well as a group of events that follow a more random schedule (like lectures or coffee houses). Would you believe that the list was two pages long, typed in tiny font, single-spaced?

The gathered leadership decided to change the way we meet this year (and possibly from here on out). Instead of having separate meetings of Elders, Deacons, and the Official Board, we will meet together once a month. We realized that this was the most effective way to improve communication, leadership development, and accountability among us.

The Journey in particular helped us identify several weak points of the current leadership structure: Elders are meeting monthly, the Official Board is meeting monthly, and the Deacons only meet for orientation and training – leaving them as a group almost entirely out of important conversations regarding the mission and ministry of the church. The Elders are to pay particular attention to the areas of worship, education, and outreach, but there are no structures in place that would allow them, e.g., to hear reports from these committees on a regular basis. The Official Board, on the other hand, often receives reports that should be considered by the entire leadership.

Having a Joint Session will allow us to monitor together our progress in achieving the goals we have set for the year; to hear and discuss relevant reports together; to learn about all areas of church leadership; to discuss new ministry initiatives in a large and representative forum; to grow together spiritually; to build and strengthen relationships among leaders.

We will start meeting for the Joint Session on the third Monday of the month, at 6pm, and the Official Board will meet at the conclusion of the Joint Session. This way, we do not add yet another meeting to our already busy schedules, and we free the Official Board to focus its work on the key areas of its responsibility – finances, property, and personnel.

We expect the Joint Session to be just the right forum to help us determine the next steps in our journey and to monitor our progress as we move forward through the year.