Board Meeting Minutes: February 5, 2023
Attendees: Korderro Brown, Tenia Dewolf, Greg Fisher, Adam Goforth, Raphael Guillen, Melanie Odom-Groh, Anna Wysocki
Start time: 12:32pm
Opening - Melanie Odom-Groh
Melanie shared some thoughts about the calling of Journey of Faith and led the board in prayer.
Reports and Actions
Operations - Greg Fisher and Tenia Dewolf
Update on the swing space easement requested by the real estate developers who will be building adjacent to the church property: the developers believe they no longer will need to swing anything over the church's property, so they don't need an easement anymore.
Tenia said that she is very concerned about the church not having bylaws and she is refraining from doing certain kinds of work since the bylaws are suspended.
Greg said he will take Melanie's previously-created draft of the bylaws and iterate on it. Then the board as a whole will discuss his draft at the regular March board meeting. The goal will be to adopt a new set of bylaws soon after that.
Tenia would like to check in with all of the church employees and see where they're at right now. This is something that hasn't happened in a while.
Washing machines: one of the washers used by Soap and Suds is completely broken and the other one is malfunctioning in a way that it can't be used.
There was some discussion among the board members of the church's options for buying used or new washers. Anna suggested we might be able to do a fundraiser for the specific goal of purchasing new washers. Matt raised the concern that we might make things harder for ourselves when we do the capital campaign if we did a fundraiser now, then followed it up with another large fundraiser a short time later. Anna suggested the church could partner with the Fed Up Truck group and see if they would advertise the need and ask for donations for us.
Matt will ask Jo Ella for the contact information of the person or people who donated the existing washers, so they could be asked for support again.
Sarah Khan will ask Pastor Anna who works with the Fed Up Truck about getting their support.
Heating issue: the heat seems to be running constantly and heating the 2nd floor of the church building. It may be a sensor issue.
Greg will contact Tom Neal and ask for his opinion on the issue before taking further steps.
Events calendar. Anna suggested that everyone with building keys should have access to the event schedule for the building.
Raphael informed the board that there is a Google Calendar with church events. He will send a link to this calendar to the whole board and Kord via email. It seems that not all rentals and other events make it into this Google Calendar, but Melanie will talk to Timothy about trying to get everything into the calendar.
A laptop was bought for Korderro to use for church business.
Finances - Matt Hoostal
Matt presented the February Treasurer's Reporting, which included some communication he's had with Brock McCracken from the Disciples Church Extension Fund about the capital fundraising campaign that the board previously decided to run in 2023. Brock could provide training and consultation to help the church run the campaign. The document Matt distributed outlined a possible process and some roles for participants in the process. The board will revisit this topic again in March.
Matt distributed a snapshot of the church's current finances to the board. There was some discussion about the church's investment funds and the restrictions on their use.
There is a need to figure out the exact restrictions that apply to each fund. The board has a general sense of what each fund is for, but in some cases the details are not clear.
The board discussed the history of the church's current financial situation.
Minister's Report - Korderro Brown
Rev. Brown observed that the current board is serving both as administrative and spiritual leaders of the church. In his previous experience, there is often a board of elders which provides spiritual leadership to the church, and a board of deacons that provides administrative leadership. Since Journey of Faith doesn't have two separate groups, the church board is taking on both roles. Korderro suggested that the church needs more spiritual direction to guide the administrative day-to-day work of the church.
The board discussed the roles of board members and the current dynamic of board meetings. Various ideas were discussed for making meetings more structured and focused, so that they don't go for 3-4 hours as some have in the past.
Worship - Raphael Guillen
Raphael suggested some ideas for more spiritual and community development of the church.
Weekly prayer nights
Official church participation in Ann Arbor Pride events
Outdoor summer events
Anna suggested that she could run regular "cafe hours" at the church, where the building would be open for people to come and spend time with other people in the church space.
Raphael will be speaking at the Taizé service at First Presbyterian, and would like to invite the whole congregation to go and participate.
The church will be doing a Lenten sermon series from sanctifiedart.com. This will include bringing back art meditations to Sunday services and doing daily devotional posts to Facebook.
Next Board Meeting
The next board meeting will be from 2pm-4pm on February 19th on Zoom. The main focus will be the church bylaws. Greg will send out a draft by the Thursday or Friday before then.
Congregational Meeting
The board discussed some details of the upcoming congregational meeting.
Who will get to vote?
Everyone who is there.
Will there be support for remote participants? If so, how?
Yes, online participants will be able to vote via chat. Adam will be at the streaming computer and will record any online votes.
Debriefing - Melanie Odom-Groh
Melanie asked the meeting participants where they felt tension in the meeting and where they saw God.
Closing Prayer - Korderro Brown
End time: 3:07pm