Members Present: Mike Arents, Gordon Arnold, John Belaski, Dennis Benoit, Elaine Eldridge, Jen Schpiro, David Soet, Herman Sullivan, Jackie Vines, Ursula Williams and Rev. Brent A. Smith

Absent, Teri Hopkins, Dan Schneider

Introductory Functions

Reviewed minutes of January 22, 2005; approved with changes [Note: Jackie Vines submitted changes via email after this Board meeting. They have been made.]

Reviewed and approved this agenda.

Developed times needed to complete this agenda in time available.

Appointed action item recorder (Jen Schpiro) and time keeper (Herm Sullivan).

Financial. Report from the Vice-President of Finance

Monthly financials. John Belaski and Dennis Benoit gave the Report from the Vice-President of Finance since David Soet was not present during this part of the meeting. The month of January looked very good. The net income of $6,310.63 was substantially related to the previous year surplus of $10,829.04.

Finance Committee Update. John and Dennis also presented the Finance Committee update. The committee has moved on some new investments to utilize the funds from previously sold stock. The purchases were 250 shares of Dell Computer, 250 shares of Life Point Hospitals and 198 shares of ishares Canada. We felt that Dell had been a sound company in the last few years and was a solid investment. Life Point is a spin-off of American Hospital Supply and it is appealing because it is concentrating its investments in small hospitals in which they are the only supplier of hospital services. We felt that had good potential for long-term investment. The ishares Canada is composed of several companies in Canada which included the energy, gas and natural gas suppliers. The component companies of ishares have been doing extremely well in Canadian and international markets and have very good potential given the growing demand for energy supplies.

March-May-Sept-Nov pledge updates. The Finance Committee recommended that there be quarterly mailings of pledge updates. This will serve to remind people of their current status as well as serve as a reminder to keep pledges current if they are slipping behind. It was also felt that if we had one of those come near the summer season, it would help increase out cash flow at the normally low income period that churches seem to experience in the summer.

Chad Coffman Comments to Board. Chad Coffman made a special presentation to the Board on several issues of importance to us and to him as our accountant. He started by saying that as a “cash flow” person he is worried about how we control/manage money. There was a point at which we went over budget but there were no repercussions. He suggested a process by which we had an approval necessary for going over budget. Then he commented on the concept that the Program Boards seem to operate by having a goal of spending all the money in their budget. He questioned whether Program Boards have a plan for how spending is set up or pre-determined. He felt we didn’t have plans for how we manage our funds. A discussion ensued in which it was stated that we do have a process in which Program Boards are asked to determine their needs and budgets prior to the Board of Trustees determines an actual budget for the overall church. It might be helpful to work with each Program Board so they more clearly understood their role in that process because some of them seem a little unclear about it. Brent asked whether we could give them specifics on their ongoing spending on a monthly statement. It appeared that could be done but would take Chad a great deal of work and it may be more appropriate to work with the Program Boards so they have a better handle on that process themselves. It was also suggested that the continuity on budgets and expenditures by the Program Boards is a little awkward in that when some of their members miss meetings or don’t get communication internally, they aren’t sure where they stand. We felt it would be helpful for them to communicate with the Vice President of Programs to clarify those types of issues. Another point Chad raised is that in this year’s budget, we are basically spending our reserve or whatever excess funds we had at the end of last year. He would like to see us establish a fund that would maintain a reserve that would allow us to work through slack periods like the summer vacation period or to cover an emergency or an unexpected dip in the cash flow via the pledges that are coming in during any given month. Dennis commented that when he was VP of Finance there were times when money was very tight and cash flow problems existed. Mike Arents suggested that in the last budget we did start a very small contingency fund to address issues like this. Brent suggested that we might want to look at this from a different point of view. If we are using all of our incoming funds from pledges, etc. for a variety of services in the church, and are meeting the needs of our congregants and accomplishing our objectives, then if we are short of funds we could address that issue by appealing to the congregation rather than carrying a reserve fund that is basically inactive.

Organizational

Report from the Minister (Brent Smith). A very in-depth report was presented by Rev. Smith, a copy of which is attached to these minutes. Brent did stress in his comments that the Board of Trustees must recognize that a key, if not our number one, goal is to raise funds to accomplish our vision and mission. He also discussed adult education, suggesting that it is currently operating as a committee of the Board, in part because they are working so hard and successfully at the adult education programming they are doing. He understands from them that they will eventually (perhaps by spring) submit Bylaws and become a Program Board. He gathered advice from the Board of Trustees on a potential Adult Education activity that may be coming and might be held somewhere other than Ahavas. He also talked about offerings, one of which he would like to support some of our congregants going with him to the District meeting in Indianapolis in April. They may be making a presentation at the District meeting about our direction, where we are going and why, along with Brent. Brent suggested that a second plate coincide with the Adult Education presentations being given by Adult Education and the presenter, Greg Forbes, and be directed toward science education. The Board supported both of these recommendations. Brent also noted that we give approximately 10 percent of our plate as a church for a variety of causes in the community and throughout the country. He felt this was to be noted as a really outstanding example of a very effective and committed congregation.

Report from the President, Board of Trustees (Mike Arents). Mike deferred his report at this time since much of it was going to be covered in Old Business.

Report from the Vice-President of Programs (Ursula Williams). Structure: We should look at separating Newcomers and Membership. Newcomers follows the person coming into our church and provides them with welcoming information, sign up for Roots, follow through Roots and when graduating from the classes the person becomes a member and hopefully goes into a Branches group. Ursula also suggested that class materials should be purchased through Newcomers so that there should be a budget for them for $300 or $400 a year for books. Discussion ensued in which it was pointed out that the Roots and Branches books are currently printed by and paid for by Covenant Board. They can continue to do that and the only reason there was any confusion about who should do it or where the funding was, is that the money that came in for the purchase of Branches books was mistakenly put in the general fund as pledges. That situation has been rectified and there now is a fund which will be a revolving fund (in other words that will pay for itself as it goes along) and operates through Covenant Board. Shirley Hoffstedt is working with their son to have him build a tri-fold rolling display board. We need dollars for special hinges that allow it to open and fold in multiple ways. There was total agreement that we needed this board for display of various purposes including Board minutes. Covenant Groups: We now have five Branches groups and some of them are working on expanding their curriculum options. RE wants to display kid’s art work and other information relative to other aspects of their program. They are also in need of teachers and hall monitors. Music: Music is kicking off a big choir roundup. Ursula and Brent met to try to work on ways to structure communication with other Boards, perhaps some sort of reporting structure. Ursula discussed with Ahavas their desire to have us use the chapel on March 12. Ahavas is planning on doing setup for Purim that day. Mike will call and check out the options involved in that question. Also, one of the dates we discussed with Ahavas for a potential date for strategic planning would be workable according to Ahavas. They also had discussions with Ursula about a Cadillac raffle that they were planning to have Sunday, April 23, and were wanting to examine with us how that might impact our congregation. A final issue of potential impact is Sunday, May 21, where there will be a wedding in the synagogue.

Old Business

Site Committee Update (John Belaski). John identified who the members of the committee were (Dennis Benoit, Ned Zimmerman, Chris Barfus, Jon Waalkes, John Belaski, Tom VanDragt, Dave Lester, Tad Caswell and Paul Namaste) and said that the committee continues to work together very effectively. They have been examining two or three sites that have come to us through our real estate agent and a follow-up from a previous church we looked at in the past. Some sites have been checked out like a revisit to a church in Jenison and Lowell and these sites have been eliminated via some very effective discussion with the committee. Bethlehem Lutheran remains on the potential list and work is being done with the real estate company handling that. John Belaski has also visited the minister and had discussions with him about our potential interest in the property. Dan Schneider sent us a site in Jenison which we have decided not to pursue. We have looked at a property on Three Mile Road near Alpine (Frontline Church). We also touched base with Whitehills Bible Church on Fulton and they are still committed to making their site viable with their new minister. (Note: At the end of this meeting, John did discuss a very exciting possibility related to a site on Cascade Road near Spaulding. This was directed to us through our RE Director and work she did looking into Froebel education processes. There was an attempt to build a Froebel school on the site but it did not succeed. There could be a possibility of combining forces with them to purchase the site and build a school that we and they could utilize as well as having a church on site. This will be explored further.) Criteria for needs is being asked from the various Program Boards and the Site Committee hopes to use that information to develop a type of template that would allow them to look at current and future needs of our congregation as we consider buildings we may be interested in.

Adult Education reporting structure (Ursula). Previously covered under Report from the Minister.

Community Directory. We have had a couple Sundays of either new pictures or approvals for use of old pictures. We will have one more posing Sunday available. There is also a plan to have a staff page in the Directory and discussion also covered the potential for Board pictures to be submitted for a “Board” page.

Strategic Plan Meeting March 19? (Jackie Vines). It looks like it may be April now before we do the strategic plan. Perhaps mid-April, potentially the 23^{rd. This will be further explored.}

“Ask Me” buttons (Dan Schneider). Dan Schneider has agreed to make the “Ask Me” buttons for use by the Board to encourage visitors, new members and current congregants to address questions to the Board.

Ahavas Relationship (John, Mike). John and Mike did meet with Ahavas. Their Board continues to feel things are going well and Mike and John responded in kind. They are very interested in addressing issues that might negatively impact our relationship and are very accommodating to thoughts and suggestions that we have expressed.

Nominating Committee (Dennis). The Nominating Committee would like suggestions by March 15. They can be directed to Dave Lester, Dennis Benoit, Jackie Vines or Tom VanDragt. Herm and Ursula have decided to continue on the Board so that leaves us with two seats to fill.

Fundraising Committee (led by Greg Hopkins). The fundraising committee composed of Greg Hopkings, Heather Williams, Ursula Williams, Jackie Vines, Chad Coffman and Nina Namaste is coming up with ideas. Chad has developed a banner for the Meijer Rewards Program, also for SCRIP. SCRIP is being brought back and be focused on during the last Sunday of each month. It is potentially a very beneficial program for the church. They are hoping to have some sort of activity related to fundraising at least once a month. In one of those activities, they talked about having a t-shirt design contest. Jackie also discussed the exciting news that New Branches Charter School will let us use their gym, which is relatively new, fairly spacious and has a stage that can be set up in it, for $100 per event. We may even be able to barter with them, like having Elgin teach some jazz music in exchange for the fee. A concern of the committee is that fundraising doesn’t seem to have a clear, stated purpose. Currently, the $7,000 in the income section of the budget is targeted for core purposes of the church. They suggested some way of having a 50-50 split on the income from fundraisers which could go to core purposes and individual needs of Program Boards. No decision was made.

New Business

a. Suzanne Meyer Talk. Plans are proceeding in good form for the presentations. It is important that Board members and others consider becoming sponsors which would mean a contribution of $50 that would entitle a couple to all of the presentations, a signed copy of several of her sermons, and a luncheon with Suzanne Meyers on Sunday afternoon. We were urged to buy a second sponsorship and use that as a vehicle to invite people we thought were potentially interested in our vision and message to hear Suzanne. That could lead to new members joining our congregation.

Reports from Action-Item Recorder and Process Observer. Jen Schpiro reviewed the action items.

 

Closing Words

Meeting was adjourned at 9:00 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

John Belaski, Board Secretary

All Souls Community Church of West Michigan

Since one of the three roles of the Board of Trustees [1) Financial, 2) Long Range Planning, and 3) Church Policy] has to do with raising money and accounting to the congregation for its expenditure [Financial], last month I talked about how money follows mission; that is, when the church is seeking with intention to live out its mission, it comes into its own identity and purpose for existing. When it comes intentionally into its own identity and purpose for existing, people come to be invested in the church. They become “converted” to the mission and identity of the church because they begin to conceive of the church as a legitimate change agent in the world, a change agent for the better. And people will give money generously to what they are convinced will change the world for the better.

Now, it is true that people will give money to the church if the only reason is so the church will survive. This is the assumption behind requests like, “The church needs your money,” or “The church won’t exist without your time and money.” But, people will not give generously to that, and should not be expected to give generously to anything that sees its own survival as its mission, as its reason for existing. Those entities that see their own existence as the reason for existing, are called bureaucracies. No bureaucracy is worth voluntarily giving money to. Yet, often that is how money is raised in a church. The implication is obvious when we scrutinize it: “Give money to the church because the church needs your money and you.” This is not what is meant by money follows mission.

The challenge of any Board of Trustees member of any church is to begin to see the activity of the church in terms of the mission of the church. When you see the church this way, you begin to talk about the church to others in this way. And when you do this, others will follow your lead and begin to see and talk about the church in terms of living out its mission. This is part of leadership in a voluntary institution like the church. Its leaders model behavior by doing it. They intentionally discipline themselves to see the church in terms of its stated mission, talk to others about the church by using the words of its mission as tools for interpretation, and shape the conversation of the church’s self-conscious identity.

The mission of All Souls is to liberate and cultivate the spirit. Here are three items of church life seen in terms of this mission.

Adult Education: The Adult Education Board [which is currently, as you may remember, a Committee of the Board of Trustees until it has Program Board status by virtue of having by-laws accepted by you the BOT(which will be drawn up and submitted this summer] is very busy with programming that it devised through careful consideration of the mission of the church. In their initial planning phase they asked themselves what the GR and W MI area populace needs to be liberated from, in ways that education could address. They answered: ignorance. What ignorances – that is, the condition of NOT being educated and, therefore, not liberated and free – did the GR and W MI populace possess that Unitarianism and Universalism has historically addressed in order to liberate human beings. Their preliminary answers were the First Amendment – free speech and the separation of church and state – and modern science, specifically evolution. My role as spiritual leader of the congregation was to inform them our faith tradition’s historic ties to these issues, and how historically our churches saw these as liberating influences and agents that the church needed to uphold and support. Thus, was born the First Amendment series – exceptionally received – and the Evolution series to be run in March. I proposed the Mid-Winter Lecture Series. They immediately seized upon it as an opportunity for All Souls to bring liberal religious voices to our area that we choose (and not Calvin!, which does choose some liberal religionists, but only the ones they think are appropriate to W MI!!!!). It is also a time when GR will be liberated from its ignorance about its Unitarian and Universalist past, and especially about how much more liberal our city was a hundred years ago than today. Consider this: If there were as many Unitarians and Universalists in our area today, as a percentage of the population, as there were 100 years ago, our church would have approximately 10,000 people! That is how much more liberal GR was 100 years ago then today, at the end of the “century of decline” (20th century) of liberal religion locally.

Sunday worship: Sunday worship is the most visible and regular time for the church not only to celebrate its identity as a liberating influence, but also to live out its identity in the way in shapes and forms human experience. My role in that is not only to guard the free pulpit from abuses (my own and others), and also to try and construct a worship experience that points toward the liberation that we hold to be Ultimate and possible for human existence. But worship is a collaborative event. It is both free pulpit and free pew in concert with one another. To fulfill my role in the free pulpit I am compelled by our faith tradition to disclose in the sermon intimate parts of myself and my life. We call that in our tradition, “preaching the truth to you in love,” the truth being, of course, the truth I see in my own experience and the “in love” part is the trust established to reveal intimate thoughts and beliefs. This prospect causes great anxiety in me and all other preachers. But it is an anxiety our faith tradition calls its ministers to live inside of while in the pulpit, the anxiety of telling “the truth” about one’s life that is the prelude to liberation. The collaboration comes into play with you in the free pew. The free pew is what you guard from abuse. You guard it for two reasons. One, to help your preacher by giving him the courage to speak his mind and, therefore, to create the space where freedom, that is, liberation, is possible for one; which, then, becomes possible for all souls. I would counsel you NOT to underestimate how much anxiety the preacher has in taking on the task of preaching the truth he sees in love. The preacher needs your active support. Not in terms of evaluating the sermon or worship, but in terms of assisting him in setting the mood for worship, something we both do together; me with the pulpit, you with the pew. Secondly, you help your fellow congregants by keeping the pews free from distractions that would distract away from the serious issues confronting the mind and the heart. And don’t underestimate how easily the mind and heart of the worshipper are taken astray (and willingly so!) by cell phones, beepers, loud talking, shuffling in and out, etc. Hopefully, the issues addressed in the worship at All Souls are issues that strike to the heart of human existence; and thus, they are difficult ones to engage, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. As difficult as they are, to that extent people will flee towards distractions that are offered to them and distractions that some will create as a means of denial. Yet, the free church is to be a place where truth is addressed without fear, even the truths we may not want to hear or consider. The freedom not to be afraid is the free spirit’s capacity and willingness to engage human existence head on, and it requires a diligence on the part of laity in the pew as well as clergy in the pulpit. I know you share this responsibility with your fellow congregants, but you are the church’s lay leaders. The mood of worship set in the pew will reflect your leadership.

How many went to the Bessie Smith production at Wealthy Theater, which involved several of our members? Looking at that experience through the lens of the mission of All Souls (to liberate and cultivate the spirit), leads me to these observations and questions: Is there any doubt about the capacity of the arts to liberate the spirit? Because the arts are a liberating experience, the arts are a means for living out the mission of the church. Scholars of the history of Western religion note that thousands of years ago formalized religion in the West arose in conjunction with theater through the Greeks. The Hebrew tradition already contained the idea that human existence was a sacred narrative, a story of God’s covenant with Israel. Today we have inherited the conjunction of these two traditions whereby the theatrical idea of telling a story became transformed into the idea that human existence is a sacred narrative. Thus to us, as Unitarian Universalists living inside of the sacred narrative of Creation’s progressive liberation, we experience a play in terms of its liberating effect. But we shape that progressive liberation as well as being shaped by it. How do you that?, or, as is said in the church’s Invocation, “assist in creation’s unfolding”? In other words, how many of you, before that production, had seen a play or musical where African Americans comprised all of the actors? How many of you were liberated to see people differently? Whites and African Americans, and all other ethnics groups in that audience, were liberated to something, if indeed theater has a connection to religion and our church’s mission really is something that has Ultimate meaning and purpose. How were those African American young women liberated, and those who knew them liberated, towards something different and more, towards creation’s fulfillment? The African American children in the play, and all the children who saw the play, what were they liberated towards? How many of you could count as a close, close friend, a person of another race such that you would write a book or play dedicated to that person? Those of you with school age children, how many opportunities does your child have for an experience with someone of another ethnic or racial background, like doing a play, an experience that is deep and long-lasting? How many of your children can claim a close friend of another race? How many opportunities are there in GR for something like that? In other words, since the arts are a liberating experience, in what ways can All Souls live out its mission through the arts, in terms of the racial and ethnic barriers in this area that keep the races confined to their stereotypes and ignorant of the larger, liberating spirit that all souls are born into and comprise? Diligently pursuing that question with devoted intent, with others in your church, over coffee hour or at dinner or while enjoying a glass of wine together, may open up before you a revelation about the way All Souls can directly impact the GR area to help liberate all souls towards creation fulfillment. You may have an idea with others that when made real, will liberate the spirit and cultivate it towards creation’s fulfillment. In my experience that’s how this “liberating the spirit” thing works through the “programming” of the church.