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
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