Board Meeting Minutes: February 19, 2023
Attendees: Korderro Brown, Tenia Dewolf, Greg Fisher, Raphael Guillen, Matt Hoostal, Melanie Odom-Groh, Anna Wysocki
Start time: 2:00pm
Opening - Melanie Odom-Groh
Melanie shared some opening thoughts and led the board in prayer.
New Washing Machines
Anna asked how the church was able to get new washing machines for the Soap and Suds program.
Matt reported that an anonymous donor paid for them and he ordered them from Best Buy. They were delivered and installed by Best Buy two Fridays ago (February 10), who also took away the old washers. Matt said that they are fairly large capacity, which will be useful for the upcoming Daytime Warming Center.
Church Leadership - Korderro Brown
Korderro asked for thoughts on and reactions to the conversation at the last board meeting about church leadership.
Anna said she is open to changes in church structure, but she values that there is a grass-roots nature to the current church organization and she wants to maintain that.
Raphael said he likes that there is broad participation in the church and that there is a lack of barriers to being a part of the work of the church. He also noted it seems like there's a lack of order at present and that more order would be good.
Greg mentioned the bylaws and noted that the church has quite a few organizational and financial obligations, which will make things complicated when it comes to the legal side of things.
Tenia said she's been thinking about what her role should be in the church and how she can most effectively work in the church. She wants the church to find the right way to move forward given its current people and situation, rather than just trying to bring back the past or maintaining the status quo.
Melanie said she thinks the church has been stuck for a while, but that Korderro's help could be the thing that gets the church unstuck.
Korderro said that there are a few high-priority things the church needs to address:
The budget is alarming because there is little to no padding between the expected income and expected outlays.
He said it seems like the board has been focused on just paying the bills; maintaining what the church has. The way out of the maintainer's mindset is defining the church's vision.
The church needs to prepare to call a permanent lead pastor. The search committee for a new pastor needs to have a vision and mission for the church, so it can create a church profile and execute the search.
The church needs to figure out strategically where it is going as a congregation. In order to do that, the board should be overhauled. The board is currently functioning as both the administrative and spiritual leadership of the church, and that is too much for one group to handle.
Korderro proposed several changes to the board:
Proposal #1: Before the bylaws are finished, reinstate the Elder Board. It should be made up of 3-4 people and Korderro as an ex officio member. This board would be responsible for the strategic and spiritual leadership of the church.
Proposal #2: After the Elder Board is reinstated, it should be in charge of creating and approving the bylaws.
Proposal #3: The current board should be repurposed. Currently its members are functioning as unpaid staff, handling the ongoing operations of the church, so this should be formalized.
Proposal #4: Matt is handling the finances of the church by himself, which should not be the case. It should instead be a group of 3 volunteers that are running the finances.
The board needs to create written descriptions for all of the roles in the church, so that each person knows what the boundaries of their responsibilities are. Timothy's role needs to be more clearly defined, and he may need to be part of future operational board meetings.
Anna noted that Matt is doing both finances and accounting work, as well as grant procurement, and that maybe he would want to focus on one or the other.
Anna brought up that the church does have work it's doing as a church and that people feel strongly about that work, but that the church might be lacking a cohesive, communal vision. She thinks a first step might be gathering feedback from everyone at the church about what the vision should be.
Korderro thinks the church has an identity, but the Elders are critical to creating the vision for the church. He sees it as the Elder Board's responsibility to define the vision and strategy of the church.
Tenia said she could help as one of the people working on finances with Matt.
Tenia supported the idea of reinstating the Elder Board, and thinks it could be a combination of older and more mature people, as well as some younger people who want to learn and grow.
Melanie suggested that the board look at expanding the financial officer role at the same time as creating the Elder Board. This would give the church both a clearer financial footing as well as more direction.
Korderro presented a potential organizational chart that outlines some of the roles that could be defined for the church and how they relate to each other.
Key: arrows indicate direct reports, lines indicate hierarchy relationships, and dotted lines are informal working relationships.
Anna said she thinks the church needs more clear organization, but wants assurance that people in different roles can still work together to get things done.
Melanie asked where the Peace House and A Servant's Heart responsibilities would fit into the organizational chart.
Korderro said that since the church doesn't participate in running Peace House, and is just the fiscal agent, then that responsibility would fall under the HR & Finance group.
Tenia mentioned that originally the intention was for Journey of Faith to only be Peace House's fiscal agent for 2 years. At some point the church needs to figure out how long to maintain this financial relationship.
Anna asked how often the church would revisit the organizational chart, and if people's positions start and stop at different times.
Korderro responded that those are things that the Elder Board would decide.
Melanie asked how to get started by creating the Elder Board.
Korderro said if the Board decides to adopt this structure, then it would have to identify potential Elder Board members, present them as nominations to the congregation, and have a congregational vote.
Greg said he thinks the Elder Board creation should happen along with creating new bylaws, since any church structure would have to be codified in the bylaws. He also noted that since the previous bylaws from 2010 don't include a provision for how to suspend or amend the bylaws themselves, it's not clear that they were legally suspended previously, so they could still be considered to be in effect.
There was some discussion of the contents of the 2010 bylaws and how the board might move forward with organizational changes within those bylaws if it has to.
Melanie suggested that the current board create an Elder Board and task them with creating new bylaws.
The board discussed the details of creating a transition team.
Initially there was some discussion of creating an Elder Board, then a question was raised of whether this board would just be tasked with creating the bylaws, or if the members would be the long-term strategic and spiritual leaders of the church.
It was decided that the newly-formed group would not be the long-term Elder Board, but instead be a transition team. It was clarified that the transition team will be specifically tasked with a) creating new bylaws and b) creating an action plan to deal with the church's financial issues.
Suggestions were gathered for the people to make up the board:
Anna suggested Greg Fisher, Adam Goforth, and Tenia Dewolf.
Tenia suggested Larry Odom-Groh.
Melanie suggested Linda White.
Korderro suggested Jo Ella Coles.
Tenia said she would prefer that Linda White join rather than herself, and noted that Linda, as a long-time member of the church and previous church leader, could bring the same kind of institutional knowledge that Tenia has.
Greg noted that if he were to join the transition team and focus on creating new bylaws, he would have to deprioritize other operational tasks that are currently on his plate. The board agreed to find other people who can take on building operations tasks so Greg will have more capacity for the bylaws. Michael Ulmer, Sharon Ongaro, Timothy Tucker-Smith, and Tom Neal were specifically named as people who could take on some of Greg's tasks.
The board decided to ask the following people to be on the transition team: Jo Ella Coles, Greg Fisher, Adam Goforth, Larry Odom-Groh, and Linda White, with Pastor Korderro Brown as an advisor.
Korderro has already asked Larry and will also ask Jo Ella. Tenia will talk to Linda.
The board will attempt to have the membership of the transition team finalized by the end of this workweek: by Friday, February 24.
Tenia brought up that there are other issues that need to be addressed beyond the bylaws and finances. She is specifically concerned with clarifying the roles and job descriptions for employees and volunteers.
Tenia, Korderro, Timothy, and Matt will meet in the next week or two to clarify Timothy's role and discuss moving some responsibilities from Matt to Timothy.
Next Board Meeting
The next board meeting will be March 5 at 12:30pm in person at the church.