Wardens’ Report from the Vestry Retreat

Wardens’ Report: Vestry Retreat 2016

The Wardens’ Report: a brief summary of highlights from monthly Vestry meetings, designed to demystify our work and provide some information about our growth, finances, priorities and progress towards our strategic plan.

We gathered last Friday in a beautiful home in the rolling (and snowy) hills of Knoxville, MD.  Our goal on Friday was to get to know one another better and to continue the conversation that David started on Gifts for the Common Good.  We each shared our understanding of our own spiritual gifts and we prayed for each other that the Holy Spirit would “fan into flame these gifts of God” for the good of our community. 

Saturday’s business was two-fold: the election of Vestry officers for the coming year and a conversation on the next steps of our strategic plan – Restoration 2019. 

We are astounded by the way God works through the Vestry election process to provide wise and skilled leaders to help us discern our next steps.  And we are thankful for the role each Vestry member plays. The results of the election were as follows:

Wardens: Hannah Royal and Carolyn Weimer

Treasurer: Ramsey Wilson

Assistant-Treasurers: Meredith Lloyd and Dietrich Kulhmann

Secretary: Mike Dodson

Please pray vigilantly for us that we would be sensitive to the work that God is doing in our midst and that we would diligently use our gifts for the common good.

The bulk of our time on Saturday was spent thinking about church planting – and more specifically, the next few steps we felt were necessary to make meaningful progress towards this aspect of our strategic plan.  We prepared for the weekend with some advanced reading on the theological basis of church planting and discussed some strategic, operational and tactical options.  We approved the formation of a new advisory team called the Church Planting Steering Team (or CPST) and asked Nathan to suggest candidates at our meeting in February. 

If you have experience, thoughts or curiosities on this subject, we’d love to hear from you.  Please reach out to Nathan or anyone on the Vestry to lend a word of encouragement or caution or to dive right in and help us define our vision.

Everyone is invited to our parish meeting on Tuesday, February 9 in Fellowship Hall. There will be a chance to meet Vestry members, hear from David and the staff about recent happenings in our church (including David’s upcoming sabbatical) and to get a more detailed update on our progress toward the strategic plan.

If you have questions, concerns, words of wisdom or encouragement, please know that we are open to your feedback on all aspects of our life together.

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’

-Carolyn Weimer and Hannah Royal, Wardens