April 11, 2010
Present – Marjory Bankson, Peter Bankson, Ken Burton (moderator), Lewise Busch (angel), Pat Conover, Kate Cudlipp, Cynthia Dahlin, Jane Engle, Dave Lloyd (recorder), Sandra Miller (angel), Trish Nemore (recorder), Brenda Seat, Keith Seat, Margreta Silverstone (worship leader), Jacqie Wallen.
Absent – Deborah Sokolove
Worship – Margreta led worship
Housekeeping – The next meeting will be May 2 at 5:30 p.m. at Conover/Nemore house. Cynthia will moderate, Sandra will record, Lewise will lead worship, and Dave and Pat will serve as dinner angels.
Review Team for Peter – Sandra and Trish agreed to be part of Peter’s review team and will solicit input from the whole community and seek additional members of the review team from the wider community. [Addendum since the meeting: Jill Joseph and Will Ramsey have joined the team.]
Money discussion update (Brenda) – Starting May 11, we will have three classes in the School of Christian Living to continue our work with money begun earlier this year. The classes will work with values underlying our giving, how we work with common funds and how we work with issues related to large gifts. A question led to clarification that the values portion will address how people envision they are currently making choices about giving. The classes will build from the previous class work, but will provide a way in for those who did not attend the earlier classes.
Sunday School report – Pat reported that he is stepping down as Sunday School Coordinator. He discussed six areas where he thinks we’ve done well this year and three that need a lot more work. The six “successes” are: 1) keeping our resources well stocked and easily available; 2) recruiting and training teachers; 3) inspiring the teachers; 4) setting up space each week in the same way to provide continuity of space for the children; 5) Children’s word and 6) transitioning from sanctuary to downstairs classrooms. The areas for improvement are1) week to week interaction between the teachers and the coordinator; 2) monitoring/being with the children during gathering time and 3) developing stronger connections with Sarah, the mother of Makayla, India and Tommy.
Trish reported that for now, the Sunday School Team of Kate, Brenda, Trish and Pat will “manage” the Sunday School coordination with Trish taking the lead on teacher recruitment, Kate on week to week connections with the teachers and Pat on resource maintenance. We’ll continue with the children’s word as we have this year (Kate, Brenda and Trish rotate month by month either bringing the word or finding another to do so) and the team will meet more frequently than it has this past year. We’ll check in with Stewards periodically to report how things are going.
Thanks to Pat for the excellent work he did this year in getting Sunday School and other matters related to the children’s presence on Sunday well organized.
Reports from mission groups on opportunities for greater involvement of all Seekers – Brenda offered suggestions on how to think about the answers we are providing to the three questions mission groups were asked to address. The three questions are:
1. What task/obligation that my mission group carries currently could be shared or carried (with training and support by the mission group) by someone outside of the mission group?
2. What opportunity does your mission group see that it presently does not hold/do, but would like to take on if they had some help from outside the mission group?
3. What tasks/opportunities does your mission group see that are not being done presently but you as a mission group see as helping or supporting Seekers larger mission and call in the world?
As we consider these questions, we should think a) what is the point of doing these things at all; if we want to put them down, what is the purpose of having others pick them up? b) Are these things important just to the person who is currently doing them or are they important in some larger sense of who Seekers is? And c) If we put something down, we need to really put it down and not continue to tell someone who picks it up how to do it. Are we ready and able to do that?
Celebration Circle, Eyes to See and Learners & Teachers reported; the written reports of Eyes and L&T are attached to these minutes. The healers group is still working with the questions, as are the rest of the mission groups, though we will have no oral report from Artists since they no longer have a Steward among their members.
Discussion followed the oral presentations from the there mission groups. Points made: There may be activities we enjoy doing but are willing to share; some activities/tasks feel like joy one day and burden another; we’ll want to be mentoring/pasturing others into picking up that which we are putting down, and invitations are very important – we should be particularly cognizant of who is looking to be asked to do something.
Update from Time & Space. Keith reported on several matters. 1) Carroll Café will be launched shortly; it is not being launched as a Seekers sponsored endeavor, at least at this time. 2) T&S will be developing policy about how we respond to homeless people who show up and may use our outdoor space, as Rudolph now is. T&S will bring a report to Stewards with some opportunity for questions. We had discussion related to addressing somewhat separately the specific needs/issues raised by Rudolph’s presence v. broader policy related to others who may come in the future.
Pat noted that some tenants appear to want more storage and display space than we really have and the closets and display areas are getting unmanageable.
The third Sunday in May we will have a discussion of front window usage.
Two Stewards to share. Margreta and Dave shared about their current life challenges.
Soul Talk
ATTACHMENTS
Eyes to See, Ears to Hear Peace Prayer Mission Group
1) What task/obligation that my mission group carries currently could be shared or carried (with training and support by the mission group) by someone outside the mission group?
• Peace & Justice prayer – could be invited each week by someone outside the group
• Peace & Justice prayer invitation to the community in the front window could be updated each week by someone outside the group
2) What opportunities does your mission group see that it presently does not hold/do, but would like to take on if they had some help from outside the group?
• website presence – could be reviews with links on good p & j websites
• invitation to community “are you carrying a p & j concern and can’t figure out what to do about it, come talk to Eyes to See”
3) What tasks/opportunities does your mission group see that are not being done presently but as a mission group you see as helping or supporting Seekers’ larger mission and call in the world?
• Jake’s mission to homeless people on the front page of our website
• mission group presentations at Circle Time (like individual call presentations)
Ways we might invite Seekers to to pick up pieces mission groups
• “Called Out At Seekers” – classified ads on the bulletin board
• Job Fair
LEARNERS AND TEACHERS
1. What task/obligation that my mission group carries currently could be shared or carried (with training and support by the mission group) by someone outside of the mission group?
We could use assistance in placing our brochures (the ones announcing new classes) at more locations in the D.C. metro area.
We are always interested in ideas for new classes.
We are always interested in new teachers, people who haven’t taught in Seekers School of Christian Living before and who are willing to co-teach with a more experienced teacher.
2. What opportunity does your mission group see that it presently does not hold/do, but would like to take on if they had some help from outside the mission group?
We would like to explore ways to conduct Christian education for our “Seekers alumni” and for anyone else who would like to use something other than face to face learning. We are interested in how technology could assist in this, such as hosting a telephone conference call or conducting a “virtual class” through Webinars or chats, or some other means.
3. What tasks/opportunities does your mission group see that are not being done presently but you as a mission group see as helping or supporting Seekers larger mission and call in the world?
We have a number of ideas:
• posting our class outlines and resources on the Seekers Web site,
• reaching out to other small congregations who might be interested in our approach to Christian education,
• doing communal or shared practices at the same time each day/week during special events or seasons (whether in the same location or at different locations),
• creating an “underground seminary” that prepares people for ministry, and
• doing a series of classes on assisting/caring for/coping with aging parents
• exploring options for a “green House” community of graduated care for aging Seekers and others
• exploring how other religious communities that are approaching the retirement of many, loss of growth, potential diminishment of members are dealing with this stage (I had specifically thought of Roman Catholic women’s communities, but there are probably others)
