Wardens’ Report: March 2021

The vestry held its monthly meeting on Tuesday, March 24 virtually.  Fun fact: vestry generally hold our meetings on the fourth Tuesday of each month.  After being led in prayer by Mary Breed and an approval of her carefully curated meeting minutes from February, we transitioned to items on the agenda.

Rector David Hanke provided an update on the following items:

• Warden’s meeting agenda from March – fun fact: wardens meet once a month apart from vestry
• Rector’s March report to vestry – fun fact: David provides a monthly update to Vestry each meeting on his ministry and other operational items
• Staff update from Nathan Dickerson – fun fact: staff take turns throughout the year providing updates on their ministry, lives, and general praises and concerns
• Final 2021 Advisory Team roster – really fun fact: we have several teams covering a variety of advisory and operational areas of the church; if you would like to learn more about these, please reach out to a member of vestry

The remainder of our evening was spent discussing: a) Phase Gamma and the Holy Week Schedule, b) updated finance report and mortgage refinance discussion, and c) receiving a Personnel team update.

One year after moving our services from in-person to virtual (do you remember those first few weeks of March and April on Zoom?!), the vestry unanimously approved plans to expand in-person service offerings beginning Easter Sunday.  We will continue to limit Sunday services to 23 pods per service with the same health and safety guidelines and a required sign-up in advance.  

The 3 primary changes in Phase Gamma will be:

1. multiple Sunday services at 9:00am and 11:00am
2. in-person gatherings for Apex on Sunday nights, and 
3. in-person, outside, Kids’ Small Groups for 16 kids, between preschool and 5th grade, on Sunday mornings at the 9 and 11.  

More complete information on the plan is available here.  Sign-up Genius for Holy Week is available here, and services from April 11 to June 13 here.

Dan Vogel, our Treasurer, then presented an update on our finances.  Our  financial position remains quite healthy: giving is above projections with expenses below projections.  He also reviewed our sustained and growing attendance of both in-person services and the virtual viewings of our various service offerings.  Finally, Dan presented the Finance team’s recommendations for refinancing the mortgage on our building in the next few months.  The team is collecting final quotes and options to present to vestry, and a final decision will be made before final approval of the FY22 budget in early summer.

We closed the meeting with thanksgiving for the health of our church and discussion on the opportunity to refocus on the 2025 Good Things Grow Here strategy in the coming months.  As always, we welcome your questions, encouragement, and feedback. You can read an archive of past Wardens’ Reports on our website or Vestry Meeting minutes on CCB, under the ‘Files’ tab in the ‘Entire Church Group’.  

-Lorene and Brad