Wardens’ Report: September 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.
The Vestry gathered in the sanctuary on Tuesday to begin our work with prayer. We welcomed David back into our midst, rejoiced in what God had done in us and through us during the sabbatical, and prayed for the Holy Spirit’s guiding in this next season of ministry at Restoration. We also gave thanks for Louise Brooks and her ministry to the children of Restoration. We prayed for the shepherding of children’s small group leaders, the safety of our kids, and the myriad other ways Louise invests in the spiritual development of this (rapidly!) growing population in our church. And we prayed for the entire Brooks family as they grieve the sudden loss of Louise’s mother this week.
We joyfully received two more discernment team reports for members exploring calls to ordained ministry and were pleased to make the recommendation that they both be considered as postulants by our Diocese’s Ordination Committee. We are so grateful for the twelve people comprising the two teams who gave significantly of their time and energy to listen, pray to help discern these calls. Your thoughtful approach did not go unnoticed!
Other business included an update from the Church Plant Steering Team, a debrief of a recent facilities project to replace broken tiles in the Upper Narthex and the approval of an Emergency Response Team tasked with formulating relevant procedures.
The Outreach Steering Team presented several documents including a debrief of last year’s activity, a forward-looking action plan, an update to our Outreach Guidelines and a recommendation for our Christmas Eve offering. As you may remember, it is our practice to give all our Christmas Eve offerings to a local organization doing important work in our community. This year, we are pleased that our offerings will go to Little Lights, an organization in SE Washington, founded by one of our sabbatical guest preachers, Steve Park.
Our Finance Report presented a summary of last year’s financial performance. Amazingly, our general fund offerings were 97.4% of budget and thanks to the careful stewardship of our staff, our spending was only slightly above target. Thanks be to God for his steady provision and thanks to all of you for your faithful giving. We hope you will join us at our upcoming Parish Meeting on Sunday, October 9th following the 11 o’clock service to hear more from the Finance Team about how we ended the year and our plans for the year to come.
Our last item of business was to discuss a proposed change to the upcoming Vestry election process. While our existing process has served us well historically, we think it can be improved to reflect some of the realities of our larger size and the specialized needs of the vestry team. We’d love to tell you more about the changes to the process at the upcoming Parish Meeting, so please do come and enjoy pizza and a ‘family meeting’. Nursery care will be available for children 3 and under. We hope to see you there.
If you have questions, concerns, words of wisdom or encouragement, please know that we are open to your feedback on all aspects of life together on Quincy Street.
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