Wardens’ Report: keeping you informed
Welcome to the first “Wardens’ Report” — a brief summary of Vestry meetings to help demystify our work and provide some information about our growth, finances, priorities and progress towards our strategic plan.
We recognize that as Restoration grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to know how things are going. We hope this summary will be helpful as you pray for our church and consider the ways you will engage in our community.
Restoration’s Vestry met last Tuesday evening, as it does each month, to oversee the business of the church. Here are some highlights:
When we met with Bishop John Guernsey two weeks ago, he encouraged us to devote more meeting time to prayer. This was no doubt a wise and godly suggestion but also daunting, given our scarce meeting time. We embraced his advice by changing our routine in a couple of ways. We met in the sanctuary to kneel in prayer, and we raised issues unique to a specific area of ministry: Kat Downs and her vital ministry as Director of Operations. Next month, we’ll focus on another.
We are just over a year into the implementation of the new strategic plan for the five year time period ending 2019. Last year’s focus was to complete our building project and ground ourselves in our new space. This year we are focused on hiring key positions to our staff team. The hiring process for a Senior Director of Discipleship and Church Planting is well under way. Another key hire for our team planned for 2015 is a Youth Ministry Coordinator to fill the position that will be vacated when Clay and Rachel move.
Mac Wheatley’s treasurer’s report showed that giving and spending through the first half of the fiscal year were both about 94% of budget; the operating reserve is strong at more than three months of budgeted expenses; and average Sunday attendance across three services since returning to Quincy Street is roughly 500 people – 403 adults and 95 children.
We happily voted to recommend to Bishop John that Scott Buckhout begin postulancy, the formal process that may lead to ordination. We appreciate the work of the discernment team that prayerfully met with Scott and provided a thoughtful recommendation. Other postulants from our community recently recommended to Bishop John through similar processes include Jesse Blaine and Morgan Reed.
Next January will mark the end of David’s seventh year of service at Restoration. As envisioned by our personnel handbook, and for the good of Restoration as well as our rector, we asked a team of wise leaders to prepare a plan for David to take a six-month sabbatical beginning in February 2016. We’ll share more information as the plan takes shape.
As always, please contact either of us or anyone on the Vestry if you have questions about the life of our church. We need your thoughtful input and constant prayers.
Carolyn Weimer and Ramsey Wilson