Council Retreat

June 11 and 12, 2008

The Council Retreat of the MN Valleys Presbytery was called to order at 10:00 a.m. by chairKathy Terpstra.  We started with introductions.

Rev. Dawn Carder, Presbytery Moderator

LeRoy Ennenga, Presbytery Vice-Moderator

Rev. Sue Coller, Executive Presbyter

Rev. Pamela Prouty, Stated Clerk

Those excused included:  Dan Billings, Class of 2009

Committee Mash members present:  Mark Chamberlain, Shirley Luhmann, Richard Underdahl-Peirce

Committee Mash members not present:  Karen Ferkinhoff, Deb Klaassen, Celeste Lasich

Invited guests:  Steve Boots, retreat leader, Sharon Johnson, Executive Presbyter, Northern Waters, Brad Carloss, Northern Waters Presbytery Council member, Ken Meunier, Transitional Executive Presbyter, John Knox Presbytery, Margaret Jumonville, John Knox Presbytery

We started with worship.

Steve led us in a conversation about Len Sweet “The Church of the Perfect Storm.”  Sweet claims that we in the church have three storms coming together at the same time:  Post Modern, Post Christendom and Post Human.  We talked about the impact on congregations and Presbytery.

We broke for lunch at 12:00 p.m.

We then had a time of worship.

Steve led us in a conversation about coaching as a spiritual leadership.  We broke into small groups to develop action plans for Council.

Kathy Terpstra’s group

1.     Invite someone from PUP task force to help bring people together to build trust and to grow as disciples.

2.     Annual discussion between similar committees across presbyteries for sharing. Better communication, better relationships. Finding out what works and what doesn’t. Learning from each other.

3.     That the council liaisons have one for each strategy area under the umbrella. Conference call each quarter, report back to Council.

4.     To reduce the size of the Council, using talent elsewhere.

Donna Hendel’s Group

1.     Getting to know each other as council members. Spending time in small groups and share faith stories.

2.     Problem with spirituality. Building from grass roots. Strong pastor leaders. Support for pastors with safe environment. Prayer concern list. Small pastor support groups.

3.     A core group of people on Committee on Ministry so that when red flags are identified, something can be done right away.

Norma’s Group

1.     Adopt the four things under the umbrella. Each of those elect someone to be on Council. Clusters elect someone to represent them. Vice moderator, Moderator, Stated Clerk and EP. Do business of the committee, coordinating the committees. Reorganize Council as above.

2.     Look at vision from several years ago

3.     Way of conducting business at council: have each committee highlighted at each meeting – four larger committees. Committees relating to certain issues – vitality of the church, interest groups, unifying witness.

4.     Center everything around the great ends of the church.

5.     Spend time focusing on church to church relationships

We broke for a break and supper at 5:00p.m.  We reconvened to talk more about action plans.  We broke for the evening at 8:00 p.m.

We reconvened at 9:00 a.m. on June 12 and started by everyone in the group sharing a Bible passage that has impacted his/her faith.

COUNCIL VOTED for a first step to have Sue lead relationship/community building process at beginning of each meeting.

COUNCIL VOTED to appoint two people on a task force to work with Sue to create action plans from the conversation from the Council Retreat and to bring back a report to the August Council meeting.  Dawn Carder and Al Jergenson will be on this task force.  This task force will also look Committee Mash recommendations.

We broke for lunch at 12:00 p.m.; vice-chair Norma Spurgin called us to order at 12:45 p.m.

Those present:  Christina Berry, Dawn Carder, Sue Coller, LeRoy Ennenga, Donna Hendel, Al Jergenson, Dawn Linder, Randy Lubbers, Grayson Osteraas, Pam Prouty, Connie Seltz, Norma Spurgin

Those excused:  Dan Billings, Nancy Chamberlain, Rallah Madison and Kathy Terpstra.

The minutes from April 3, 2008 and the May 3, 2008 were approved.

Reports

Articles of Incorporation Task Force

LeRoy chair of the Task Force reported that Harold Tongen and Lynn Olson were added to the Task Force along with Bea Ourada and LeRoy Ennenga.  They met and will meet again on July 8, 2008.

Committee Liaisons/Phone Advocates

Al reported that Harold Tongen from Leadership Care and Encouragement Ministry Action Team led the orientation for new commissioners at the last Presbytery meeting.  We talked about this ministry action team and its purpose.  We need to talk about later the need to keep the commissioners training before Presbytery meetings.

LeRoy reported from COM that four new pastors will be coming in Cluster 6.  We talked for awhile about the time and dates of ordination/installation.

Executive Presbyter

Sue shared about the Synod staff support dollars ($40,000.00 currently). The Synod decided that before taking action about what to do with these dollars that a task force of Synod Executive Phil Brown and/or Synod staff Diana Barber and the Synod Commissioners.  Sue will sift through Synod financial information and will get it to us so we can talk about it at the August meeting.

COUNCIL VOTED to change the October Council meeting to Tuesday, October 7, 2008 started at 10:00 a.m.

COUNCIL VOTED to invite the Synod task force of Phil Brown and/or Diana Barber and our Synod Commissioners to the October meeting to discuss the staff support dollars.

Stated Clerk

Pam presented the following report

Stated Clerk’s Report

To the

Council of MN Valleys Presbytery

June 12, 2008

1.             Jean Bauer has transferred her membership to First Church, St. Cloud; so the Presbytery no longer has any members from Hope, Sauk Rapids on our rolls.

2.             One member has been transferred to another church from the Sartell rolls; so there are five people on the rolls of Presbytery from the Sartell congregation.

3.            Received a letter from Holland who asked that we consider their membership at 102 

                 for 2007 instead of their 2006 membership of 104.  At the last Council meeting it 

             was decided that the congregations who did not submit their annual General Assembly 

             statistical reports for 2007 that their membership would be based on the 2006 figures for 

             per capita purposes.

COUNCIL VOTED to accept the 2007 membership numbers from the Holland congregation for this year but to not change the per capita.  The Stated Clerk will write a letter to them.

Items for New Business:

1.     The Session of First Presbyterian Church, St. Cloud is on record as
wanting to take a more active part in Presbytery activities.  At its May
19th meeting a motion was passed unanimously to request whomever
schedules the location of Presbytery Meetings to have them centrally
located so that no commissioners would need to travel more than 2 hours

This will be talked about at the August Council meeting and we agreed that we all know all the pros and cons of this issue.

Presbytery Moderator

Dawn reported about her experience at the Church of Scotland General Assembly.  And she gave us a copy of her report to the General Assembly.

Personnel Committee

Dawn Linder reported that another person is needed for personnel committee.  Dawn Linder agreed to ask the Rev. Harold Tongen to serve on this committee and to ask him to be chair.

Budget and Finance Committee

Grayson reported.

COUNCIL VOTED to receive the General Mission Giving to date, the profit and loss, the balance sheet and the per capita report. Click here for Reports

Old Business

The Bethel Presbyterian Church has requested a task force to help facilitate a process to help them discern where they fit and help them stay or leave in a healthy way for everyone.

COUNCIL VOTED to ask two pastors and four lay people to be on this task force.  Possible clergy :  Penny Jo Temple Johnson, Janet Crissinger Clark, Don Crissinger Clark,  Dawn Linder, and Dan Billings, Terry Morse; possible lay people:  Terry Gulden, Cindy Matthews Rosa, Keith Carey, Del Bolloyt, Keith Lohse, Norma Cook, Bob Fraser, Jim Knips, Dean Knips

Dawn Carder will find the clergy; LeRoy will find the elders and will let Sue and Pam know by the end of June.

Norma will ask Kathy Terpstra if she will go with Sue Coller for some pastoral care for Wilmont congregation.

New Business

COM VOTED to request that the Budget and Finance Committee distribute the 2008 interest from the Sartell Funds as approved by the presbytery to accounts L5065 “Pastoral/Congregational Support and Development” and L5008 “Congregational Transformation” when they are paid so they will be available to the Committee on Ministry and Congregational Growth and Development Committee to address current, vital needs among pastors and churches

COUNCIL VOTED to postpone this discussion to the next August Council meeting .

Donna Hendel was appointed to the Budget and Finance Committee .

Randy closed us with prayer .

Our next meeting will be August 12 beginning at 10:00 a.m. at the Presbytery office .

Respectfully submitted ,

Pamela Prouty

Stated Clerk