Chile Mission Blog 2014 – 1st Edition

Bluff Park United Methodist Church

Missions Committee Meeting Minutes

February 3, 2014

Committee Chairperson, Leonette Slay, called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. Vice-Chair, Mike Patrick, began the meeting with a prayer.  Leonette called for a review and approval of the last meeting’s minutes.  These minutes were approved as submitted. In addition to Chairperson Slay and pastor Tom Duley, the following committee members were present: Elizabeth Davis, Sylvia Sumners, Roy Shanlever, Bennie Vinson, Mike Patrick, Joe Kerns, and Hannah Shultz.

The first order of business was to give the committee members a review of the decisions approved by the Board of Stewards at its meeting on January 23, 2014.  Mike Patrick began by explaining that John Elmore’s salary of $3,000 was moved to a separate line item in the budget and line items for Domestic VIM projects and International VIM projects were also added.  The budget for the International VIM was funded for $25,000 and no amount was funded at this time for the domestic VIM projects.  Tom Duley interjected that a proposed building of a Bluff Park UMC Habitat House would serve as our domestic VIM project and this will be accomplished with donated funds (he talks more about this later in the meeting).  Mike concluded, saying that there was no push back on the Missions budget by either the Finance Committee or the Board of Stewards.  Leonette shared that she presented this committee’s recommended mission focus of Matthew 25 for the church to the Board of Stewards and explained how our congregation emphasizing three areas of this scripture – food, water, and shelter, can accomplish this focus.

She reassured the Board members that Sunday school missions’ efforts would not be impacted in any way but would enhance the Matthew 25 mission focus especially if they supported the areas of food, water, or shelter.  Leonette reported that the church and the Board of Stewards fully backed the mission plan presented by this committee.

With the next item on the agenda, Tom Duley updated the committee on the BPUMC Habitat for Humanity project.  Tom explained that it was in our best interest in getting our budget realigned and approved to zero out our Domestic VIM Project budget line item.  He shared with us that our Domestic VIM project this year (the BPUMC Habitat Home) is going to be separately funded.  Thanks to the help of Jim McCrary of our church who works with the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham and an anonymous individual donor, $40,000 of the estimated $55,000 cost of the home has been raised.  The remaining $15,000 will need to be raised by the church.  Tom explained that the current funding represents almost a 3 to 1 match for funds raised by the church.  Tom will present a plan to raise this money to this committee at the next meeting.  Tom would like for our plans for construction of this house to be nailed down by June 1st and have the money in place by July 15th.  These houses are usually constructed on a four-week schedule and this one will most likely be built in September and October.  There is a good chance it will be constructed in the Calera area, which will give a lot of members of this congregation a good opportunity to work on it.

Tom also informed us that another mission was announced at the Board of Stewards meeting.  The Conference is committed to the No More Malaria Campaign.  This church’s proportioned commitment to this mission is $25,000 over the next three years. There is no funding for this in the budget.  It is not clear at this point who will head up the campaign to raise this funding. Chairperson Slay, expressed caution that this committee should be careful to not get spread too thin.  She did go on to say that the Finance Committee did submit in the approved budget, funds to hire a part time Communications Director.  She thinks this is a very positive step forward and should help all committees in coordinating their efforts so we don’t get confused on who is doing what or have us competing in the church’s fundraising efforts for Habitat, Malaria, disaster events, etc.  She also made the point that there are many opportunities for our church members to get involved in missions.

The next item discussed was the formation of the Matthew 25 campaign and ways to publicize it.  Leonette mentioned that there are other “Matthew 25” churches such as Canterbury UMC and they may have some valuable ideas and suggestions that will be helpful to us in getting the word out to our congregation.  Tom will put a blurb in the newsletter for anyone that has a marketing skill set.  Several names were passed around of persons that might be able to help us.

On the next agenda item, Tom informed the committee that he and Bill Harris are scheduled to go to Costa Rica in May to participate on a Kairos team ministering to inmates there.  This international mission event is sanctioned through the Alabama Kairos Organization.  Tom asked this committee for funding for this mission from our budget item for International Missions.  Elizabeth Davis made a motion that we fund Tom and Bill on this mission in an amount not to exceed $3,000. Sylvia Sumners seconded the motion.  A vote was taken and the motion carried.

Joe Kerns voiced his concern about the title of the International VIM Missions line item in our budget.  He felt that the current title could cause some confusion in the future concerning the use of these funds.  After some discussion the committee agreed that the title of this line item should be clarified, maybe for next year’s budget.

Leonette moved the meeting on to other outreach opportunities.  She mentioned the Meals on Wheels program that is now being headed up by Robin Martin.  This is a good opportunity for our members to participate in mission work.  Also, she informed the committee about the upcoming Stop Hunger Now event scheduled for February 11 – 13, at Canterbury UMC.  An announcement of this will be put in the bulletin so our members will be aware of it.  Information about this event can also be found on Canterbury’s website.

Elizabeth Davis asked for help in getting the word out to the Sunday school classes for the Rock-a-thon to support our Methodist mission at McCoy Adult Day Care.  The Rock-a-thon will be held on February 22nd at Morgan UMC between 9:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.  Several committee members took information on this to help Elizabeth.

Next Leonette spoke about the accountability of our donated funds.  Rachel Estes of Canterbury UMC is going to send her some material to help us set up some accountability guidelines.  She will pass information along to the committee when she receives it.

The committee agreed that our next committee meeting will be May 12th at 7:00 p.m.  A sub committee consisting of Tom Duley, Mike Patrick, Sylvia Sumners, and Bennie Vinson was created to review and develop a list of donation candidates using the new guidelines.  This sub committee will meet on April 23rd at 5:00 p.m. and then report their disbursement recommendations to the committee at large on May12th.

Finally, our youth representative on this committee, Hannah Shultz, expressed the need for this committee to promote mission projects that involve members from all age groups.  She shared about the impact that working on the Appalachian Service Project had on her and how it sparked her interest in mission work.  She strongly feels that involving young people with our older members in mission projects is so important. It impacts these young peoples’ lives with the relationships built with older members as well as making our mission work come together more as a church and not just groups.  She would like to see mission opportunities for youth in the international arena and especially at the local level now that we have the Habitat House project.  Tom confirmed that the minimum age limit set by Habitat is 14.  Everyone agreed that it would be good to involve our youth with this in some manner and expose them to the joy of reaching out to others in Christ’s love.

Chairperson Slay gave the benediction and the meeting adjourned at 8:15 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Bennie Vinson

Secretary

Missions Committee Meeting Minutes

Committee Chairperson, Leonette Slay, called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. and began the meeting with a prayer. The first order of business was for each person present to introduce themselves. In addition to Chairperson Slay and pastors, Mike Holly and Tom Duley, the following committee members were present: Elizabeth Davis, Sylvia Summers, Roy Shanlever, John Erwin, Ed Thomas, Bennie Vinson, Mike Patrick, Carole Armistead, Jack Armistead, Joe Kerns, and Georgia Pearson.

The next order of business was the elections of secretary and vice-chair. Bennie Vinson volunteered as nominee for secretary and Mike Patrick volunteered as nominee for vice- chair. Both candidates were duly elected to these positions by the committee.  Leonette next gave some background information from the preliminary brainstorming meetings leading up to this meeting that she had with the pastors. These meetings brought forth some ideas about a possible mission focus for Bluff Park UMC.

The meeting was then turned over to Pastor Mike Holly to present the ideas coming out of the preliminary meetings. Mike shared that, early on after coming to Bluff Park, he faced the issue that many organizations request funding from this church. As a result he saw a need to have a focus and criteria to help determine which outreach ministries and organizations this church should support. He feels that this committee should be the one to establish a church-wide focus for missions. He reminded us that the church-directed missions have in the past primarily gone to VIM mission trips and a few others while special offerings like the Easter Love Gift have been the vehicle used to help fund organizations like Urban Ministries, United Community Center, etc.

Mike continued with an idea that came out of the preliminary meetings that maybe our church’s mission focus could rally around those ministries Jesus talked about in Matthew 25:35-36 of feeding the hungry, giving the thirsty drink, providing shelter for a stranger, giving clothes to the needy, caring for the sick, and visiting those in prison. He acknowledged that we are doing many of these things already through the Food Pantry, Under the Bridge, VIM, Kairos, and many more. Also, many Sunday school classes are supporting a variety of mission projects.

Mike pointed out that what we are doing is a lot already and trying to include all the ministries mentioned in Matthew 25:35-36 could be overwhelming and spread our mission ministry too thin to be effective. The idea he is presenting is that we can have a missions focus within the Matthew 25:35-36 framework that narrows (at least for now) to three of those mission ministry categories – Food, Water, and Shelter. If we focus on these three, we can be more effective and selective on funding requests we grant as well as having more impact on what we do support.

There was a time of questions and discussion among the committee members covering such topics as more accountability between us and the agencies we support; how has the Easter Love Offering been used in the past; establishing criteria for efficient fund distribution; using applications for mission aid to agencies; methods of church budgeting for missions; and creating logos and visuals to help the congregation understand the concept. Mike concluded by reiterating that Sunday school classes could and should continue supporting missions they want to independently; but, this committee can lead the church’s mission work by adopting the categories of food, water, and shelter as the basics for our missions and this can be the focus for all of us as we are led by the Holy Spirit.

Leonette asked if the committee wanted to take a vote on a proposal to be presented to the Board of Stewards. Jack Armistead made a motion that we vote on the proposal stated as follows: “The church adopts Matthew 25:35-36 as the framework of the mission programs of our church. Secondly, the church adopts three areas of focus within this framework. Those focus areas are food, water, and shelter”. Mike Patrick seconded the motion. A vote was taken and the motion passed. The proposal will be reported to the Board of Stewards at the January 26, 2014, meeting.

The meeting was then turned over to Pastor Tom Duley to report on the Mission Committee request to the Finance Committee. Tom reported the following responses to the Finance Committee 2014 Budget Input Form:

1. With the same funding level as last year, $3,000.00, we will use that funding again to support our domestic VIM trip. Such trip(s) will more than likely be defined by a weather emergency.

2. If new mission opportunities could be added this year we would take on a large project like a Habitat for Humanity home at a projected cost of $50,000.

3. If we have to reduce our budget funding there would be nothing to eliminate but the funding set aside for the domestic VIM trip. This is because there is only one line-item in the budget. All other mission funding beside this inadequate budget amount must come from other sources such as the Easter Love Gift, Pastor’s discretionary fund, fund raisers, and special gifts. The missions committee has set three priorities: 1. one domestic VIM trip per year; 2. one international VIM trip per year; 3. salary support for our covenant missionary partner in Chile, John Elmore. We would like to see these church-wide commitments funded through the church’s budget. The funding for these would be Domestic VIM for $15,000, International VIM for $25,000, John Elmore’s Salary for $3,000 for a Grand Total of $43,000.

The Finance Committee will meet on December 12, 2013. Tom said we will just have to see what they come back with. Leonette then moved on to other business. She felt the committee could function adequately by meeting four times a year. Since the passed proposal from this meeting is to be considered by the Board of Stewards, our next meeting should not be until after January 26, 2014, when the Board of Stewards meets. The committee agreed that Monday night is the best night of the week for the majority of the members and that meetings will probably be on the 1st early as February.

Leonette then shared with the committee from her reading some information about the theology of missions.

Pastor Tom Duley gave the benediction and the meeting was adjourned at 8:15 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Bennie Vinson

Secretary