April

From the Council "Reflect my love! And repeat my action!”

Dear Bethel Members,

The Council held a work session on March 16 to review with Pastor Alan for the How a Congregational Council Works guidelines. This document defines what a congregational council is, what it does and how council members can most effectively work together for the good of the church, especially when dealing with a difficult issue. I will say that your Council already employs many of the principles outlined in the document. The Council voted to adopt these guidelines as a resource for effective leadership. If you would like to review the entire document, it may be found on Bethel’s website or in the church office. Upon adoption of these guidelines, the Council has created two new committees, the Personnel Committee, which will be responsible for staff performance reviews and personnel issues and the Mutual Ministries Committee, which will be involved with the pastor’s performance reviews. The committees will only meet a couple of times during the year and we need Bethel members, exclusive of Council members, to serve on these new committees. If you would be willing to join one of these committees, please contact Pastor Alan or a Council member.

At our March meeting, there was much discussion about the plan for Bethel in 2014. While we are continuing our shared services, activities and discussions with the Jamestown Lutheran Church Community, we understand that Pastor Alan’s Intentional Interim call at Bethel is, unfortunately, finite; therefore we need to develop a plan to sustain Bethel. A pastoral call was discussed and a sub-committee, consisting of Lois Lindell, Sharon Terwilliger, Cal Cederquist and Tom Nelson, was formed to investigate our needs, our wants, our resources, and our mission with the task of generating recommendations to the Council at our April meeting. We sense that the Lord is with us to guide us along the path He wishes us to follow. The Council is very much looking forward to their report.

As we look to our mission at Bethel, Sean Kilmartin presented a terrific idea to involve the men of Bethel in a “purpose driven way.” The pancake breakfast is always a huge success, so why not tap the talent and assets to expand the church’s mission and to build the faith of the men of Bethel. Sean will bring an outline of ideas to our meeting in April.

Other initiatives discussed included adoption of a main door(s) Key Policy to help us keep track of the access keys to the church. We are in the process of obtaining estimates to re-key the main doors of the church with non-duplicable keys, so the church can maintain a current inventory of keys in an effort to keep our staff, students and members safe. The Council is redesigning the Time and Ability forms for 2014, to better reflect our needs and aid in tapping the human resources we have. A family is always better when we can all work together. Bethel is rejuvenating. You can feel it. Our Sunday School students, as few as there may be, has collected enough money to buy our family in Africa a cow. The Council is looking for volunteers who are ready, willing and able to respond to a crisis in our own backyard or in God’s backyard. What can YOU do, if there is a need? With the Lord’s help, Bethel can be an effective tool for Christ and use our blessings to serve others. Thank you to everyone who attended the Lenten dinner and service Wednesday. The food was great, the fellowship fantastic and the message thought provoking. May God bless you all and thank you for the kindness you show to others every day.

Sincerely,

Gregg Davis- President