Feedback on CitC leadership

Over the last few weeks, the transition team has begun considering how to ensure that the community has a leadership structure that allows effective administration of CitC business while encouraging organic growth, transparency, and engagement. As we consider these factors, we would like to request the community’s input on a potential structure. We have suggested some possible structures below, but would like to request your thoughts and feedback. We fully expect that these ideas will change based on your ideas, on additional debate from the TT, and on the input of leaders at other churches that we have engaged for advice.

Leadership body:

• Size and structure: The TT is considering the formation of a 5 person leadership team that both ensures the appropriate mix of leadership skills and is representative of the demographics (social, educational, racial, gender, etc) of Church in the Cliff and the community that we are engaging. The leadership team would commit to two year terms and be responsible for all church administration.
• Committees: To assist the leadership team, additional standing and ad-hoc committees would be formed to deal with specific administrative issues. Three committees would be formed immediately: Worship (meeting weekly), Finance (meeting monthly and as needed to address specific administrative issues), and Community (focused on both building the CitC community and how CitC interacts with the Dallas/Oak Cliff community and beyond). An additional ad-hoc committee would be formed twice a year to conduct strategic planning. Each committee would be chaired by a member of the leadership team and be filled by other members of the community.
• Nomination: To identify members for the leadership team, the TT would like to submit a request for nominations to the community. An independent nomination committee would be formed to review and select members for the leadership team. The nomination committee could include community members and TT members who have chosen not to be considered for the leadership team.

Questions on the role of the community

• Decision making: As the new leadership body is formed, it will be critical to determine how decisions are made and/or confirmed. Should the community vote on all decisions (the current structure under the TT) or should the community provide feedback to the leadership team who ultimately makes decisions. Community discussions of issues could occur during community meetings or through a blog.

Questions on the role of the pastor:

• As the leadership body is formed, should the pastor engage in decision making around church administration or solely focus on pastoral care and rely on the leadership team to make administrative decisions independently?

First steps for the new leadership body:

A number of concerns have been raised during TT conversations that are outside the scope of forming a budget, identifying a pastor, and developing a leadership team. These concerns will be added to a “first six month agenda” for the leadership team and currently include:

• Formation of CitC vision, values, & by-laws
• Consider on-going denominational affiliation, relationship to Cathedral of Hope, and potentially establishing an independent organization for CitC.

Church in the Cliff Transition Team Meeting with LaReunion, TX 4-25-2009

Last Saturday, the Transition Team met with Sarah Jane Semrad at the La Reunion offices. She described the organizational structure of the non-profits in which she is involved. We then did some exercises to discover our needs and imagine a possible structure. This was a first stab to get us to think about issues. We will be presenting some ideas to the community in the coming weeks and soliciting feedback. These are the notes from that Saturday.

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Church in the Cliff Transition Team Meeting with LaReunion, TX
4-25-2009

Attendees: Courtney Pinkerton Rob Shearer Jen Maulden Lara Arp Sarah Jane Semrad Tiana Lightfoot Abby Lowe Kristin Schutz

Introduction CP and SJ and LA: Books: Good to Great for the Social Sector Thin Book of Naming Elephants Others

CP: Three questions for discussion: What leadership structure, who fills it and church’s blessing of structure and people.

Non-Profit 101 SJ: Difference between non-profit and for-profit Bottom line: Stake holders and numbers V. mission statement Governing board Function: Govern the org, keep the org IRS compliant hire and fire the executive director, long-term strategic planning, ambassadors of the organization – face of org, donate money/financially contribute Give/get policy to be on board Bylaws

Executive/Staff Lead by ED (Pastor)
Day-to-day
Execute mission of org
Exec works very closely with the board and boardchair/president
Exec does not hold board accountable – that is boad pres/chair’s job
Committees

Who is served Representation needs to be on the board as well

Case Studies: LRTX & Art con
SJ’s Binder
Board roster
Board bios
Calendar of events for fiscal year
Bylaws, updated and constantly available
Refer to bylaws to resolve conflict and questions
Strategic Plan
Agendas – Time Driven
Minutes (required by IRS and often for grants)
Directors report at each board meeting
Outlines all meetings in the community so that board knowsher community presence, possibly make more connections, help, etc.
Working budget
Committee meeting agendas and notes
Action plans at the end of every meeting
Strategic planning committee meets 1-2 times a year
How to get board members to come to the table, keep them invested
Figure out why they would join, deliver that
Binders of information that offer any information a board membermight need.
All non-profits file 990

Governance Brainstorm Who do we serve/want to serve? LGBT Theologans Artists, musicians University Students Spiritually curious Wounded Philosophers Seminarians Kids Oak Cliff people Global community Social activists Politically inactive Voiceless Ethnically diverse DFW area Emergent church Spiritually diverse Socioeconomically diverse Multi-generational Disabilities Homeless Holy Spirit Professionals Regular people Married, single, divorced Families Sinners Environmentalists Spanish speakers Athiests

Board must be representative of the people the org serves.

Professional Needs:
Attorney/legal
Accounting/financial
Oak Cliff interface
Theological
Therapist/psychological
Ethicist
Arts
Education professional
Development – fundraising
Organizational management
Real Estate
Childcare
Hospitality
Music
Pastoral
Mediator

Action Items: CitC/City Gallery – get non-profit status Jen Mauldin – Mother is accountant for small churches. Going to ask about filing status. Who will be nominating committee for board?

Discussion of transition team members as candidates for the board: Can transition team members be nominated without appearing exclusive? Should TT members exlude themselves from discussions about structure and nominating if they want to be board members? Abby: Start process ASAP – helps people see stability in church and encourages inclusiveness. SJ: Have open nominating process to the community, everyone throws in names, nominating committee approaches those people about commitments and obligations. Have it within a very set time-frame (10 days) Board members sign conflict of interest policy Board members sign board commitment form Responsibilities, committees, financial contributions

Discussion on bylaws and voting-in of board:
SJ: Transition team as nominating committee for board Include outside member
SJ: Odd number of board members is best for voting, depending on voting system (majority, 2/3, etc.)
JM: Mother’s advice: Board members develop bylaws, and then put to the community for a vote. Nominating committee can nominate themselves, put before community to be voted on.
SJ: Cautions putting voting in of board to the community, because it would become popularity contest rather than based on professional needs of a board.
SS: Bylaws are not up to TT to determine
SJ: Transition team takes first round of bylaw edits, then put them up for community.
CP: Keep board and rules lean at first

Executive team brainstorm: Define major areas of work: Sunday worship Wednesday night Pastoral care Childcare City Gallery Community service Music Outreach Community involvement Bulletin Weekly e-mail Website Blog Breakfast Hospitality Social Justice Education Spiritual formation Set up and take down on Sunday Stewardship Creative outlets in and outside of Sunday worship Liturgy planning Accounting, checkbook, depositing money

Potential committees brainstorm:
Keep number of committees small, committee scope can be broad
Place work areas into a committee
Worship – at least 1 time a week, Mondays at 6-7:30
Sunday
Wednesday
Music
Children
Education
Community Relations – 2x/month
Gallery
Website
Communications
Social Justice
Community service
Food
Community involvement
Pastoral care
Finance (Treasurer who sits on board, Exec, and others) 1x/month
Accounting
Checkbook
Action items:
Investigate legal status of CitC and CityGallery - Jen or Teri
Board Commitment Form - SJ via Abby
Conflict of Interest Policy - SJ via Abby
By-laws - SS
Determine size of board - 5 was suggested to keep it lean as we start out.
Timeline for developing leadership plan - Rob
We also discussed the need to form a nominating committee. For an outsider, Danielle Shroyer and SJ's dad were suggested.

Notes from Transition Team Meeting 4/20/09

I. Accounting & Finance

A. We agreed that a more complete understanding of the finances over the past year is needed to better understand our present situation and accurately forecast our budget into the future.

B. Wes, John & Teri agreed to meet and discuss what sort of financial reports we need and then Teri agreed to interface with Paula at Cathedral of Hope to get the necessary reports.

C. Teri also agreed to draft a letter to CoH from the TT of CitC that authorizes Teri, Wes and John as the sole contacts during the time that the TT is in place to make check requests and other financial inquiries.

D. Teri will also include in the letter the request to increase Courtney’s salary per the community meeting and agreement the Sunday before Easter. (Feel free to add the exact amount and hours here, I don’t know them off the top of my head.)

E. Courtney agreed to check the PO box on a regular basis.

F. It was noted that in the community meeting on Sunday, April 19 the budget of $5500/month was approved and it was inclusive of expenses such as coffee and worship supplies. We set a budget amount of $200/month for those expenses.

G. It was agreed in the interest of managing expenses that the church would purchase a VOIP phone number that could be directed to Courtney’s cell phone. We will also contribute $35/month to Courtney to defray the additional minutes that will be needed for her to maintain the CitC phone. No cellular contract will be necessary as a result of this move, and the total monthly telephony expense should not exceed $45.

II. Last Sunday Review

A. It was noted that attendance at the community meeting and worship on Sunday, April 19 was very low.

B. It was noted that we will most likely need to repeat some information for the sake of communication at the community meeting on April 26, and at the end of the service for those that don’t attend the community meeting.

III. Coming Sunday Planning

A. This coming Sunday we plan to discuss the budget and pass out cards for people to give us a projected estimate of gifts of finances, time or abilities to help the church move forward.

IV. Saturday Strategy Meeting

A. It was agreed that we will suspend the normal TT meeting this Thursday in place of an extended TT meeting on Saturday from 9am – 12pm at the La Reunion offices. The purpose of the meeting will be to begin examining church governance and decision making structures. Lara Arp and Sara Jane Semrad will be in attendance to help facilitate the conversation.

Jenga for Jesus!

I've just been reviewing our Jenga blocks from Sunday. For those who weren't there, we had four Jenga sets on which we wrote words to express a vision, dream or prophecy for our church. We built a tower out of it and now I'm looking at the blocks to see what kind of shared vision we might have.

Granted, this is in no way scientific. It was a low turnout to begin with, so it's not a valid statistical sample. Also, there are many judgment calls in trying to group things. There are many synonyms, but it's hard to figure how far to push that before you're into a new idea. However, there are some clear tendencies.

The largest group is a set of words that suggest openness, inclusiveness, diversity and acceptance. This has long been an expressed core value of this church. It's probably one of the main reasons many of us are here.

Love, compassion and kindness are next. This is good, but I would hope it's not unique to our church. Therefore, I'm not sure it tells us much about who we are. (It would be interesting to take this Jenga game on the road and see if we are unique in thinking about love.)

There was one group that would probably be dismissed in many churches. It could loosely be described as "fun" though "silliness" would also work. This group included gems like monsters, fire, squirrels and naked fisherman. A casual observer would probably think that people weren't taking the exercise seriously, but I don't think that's the case. Having fun is important to us and not just because it's fun. I think our ability to not take ourselves too seriously keeps us from holding on too tightly to ideas about God. We're not just here to have fun, but having fun is a core part of who we are.

Social justice and similar concerns were also a big hit. Again, this is not surprising. Many people in the church are involved in social justice work, probably more than we know. Courtney and I have talked a lot about making this more intentional as well as trying to better share knowledge about what people are doing.

However, social justice ties with something that did surprise me a bit: outreach. Not only were there a lot of responses along these lines, but it was remarkably consistent. People specifically said outreach. This is kind of an "old church" word, but it's encouraging that people think we have something worth sharing.

Also well-represented were the arts: art, music and poetry. My understanding is that this was a foundational value of the church and, as an artist, I'm glad we still feel that calling.

For those who think we're Unitarians, you'll be glad to know that Jesus and the Bible made a strong showing in our game. Turns out we actually try to follow Jesus around here and we find a lot of value in our scriptural tradition.

One area where there was not consensus was around how we organize ourselves. It wasn't mentioned much and when it was there was little commonality. However, it is clear that people want leadership and vision and they want it to be transparent and honest. Whatever structure achieves that would probably be fine.

There were a lot of outlier words that I couldn't group. Share, passion, holiness, complex, thankful, etc. There were some longer phrases that were compelling, such as "bringing out God in each other" and "sharing church progress."

Anyway, I think we sometimes think we are all such individuals that we can't really have a shared vision or shared values, that all we can really do is create a space where people can explore their own relationship with God. I think that is an important space, but it seems it's actually leading somewhere beyond simply saying who we are not. (It's almost like there's an intention behind it!) Perhaps this can be the foundation as we continue to live into this dream.

Church, Past and Future

Dear Church in the Cliff,

I have just returned from a beautiful weekend at the Alliance of Baptist Convocation in Charlotte, North Carolina. I travelled with Genny Rowley, from our community, who will be seeking to have her chaplaincy affiliation through the Alliance, and also spent the weekend with Lara Arp, our previous interning/resident pastor as well as Pastor Laura and Dr. Fred.

It was a really special moment for me as community pastor to learn more about our relationship with the Alliance. I also had the pleasure of spending all afternoon on Saturday with Nancy, the founding pastor of City Church, the congregation which birthed Church in the Cliff last year. She shared with me her original vision of an arts church in an urban neighborhood and between Lara Arp and Pastor Laura they wove the story of the church's origins ten + years ago to the present. What a collection of spiritual entrepreneurs! I feel honored to stand in such a line of innovative female clergy and to serve a church so wedded to integrating the arts and pursuit of social justice into our worshiping core.

I also enjoyed their counsel and perspective on our future. The final speaker at the conference, Diane Butler Bass, talked about the need for progressive and life-filled churches to be 'generative Christians' and to define not just what we are not, but who and what we are. I loved her talk and see so much of our current transition and identity conversations as part of a broader movement among the Church in these times of change. What a cool moment to be listening for the Spirit in community.

I will be at Hunky's tonight from 6-7:30 to plan next Sunday's worship on I Corinthians and Love and look forward to seeing several of you there!

Much more to share but for now just wanted to post that I came home reminded how special a place our congregation is and excited to move into our next steps.

peace

Courtney

Transition Team Meeting 4/16/09

The main agenda item for this meeting was church finances and budget.

We decided to print the weekly offering totals in the Sunday program each week so that everyone will be able to follow our financial situation more closely.

There was some discussion of the financial/legal structure of CITC. CityChurch was (and still is) incorporated as a religious corporation. CityGallery is an assumed name of CityChurch. CITC is a DBA (doing business as) of Cathedral of Hope. Currently, the weekly offering is deposited into the CITC bank account and the money is swept into Cathedral of Hope’s account. CITC is essentially treated as a division or department of Cathedral of Hope. CITC bills and expenses are paid by Cathedral of Hope, we believe only upon submission of a check request. We are going to clarify that with Cathedral of Hope so that all checks (other than salary) must always have a signed check request.

We worked on the budget which we will be presented to the community at the 10am meeting on Sunday, April 19. The main categories of spending are the pastor’s salary, rent at Kidd Springs, and childcare. Through June we also have health insurance costs for PL and Neeki, which we agreed to pay at a prior meeting before they left.

Courtney is currently paid for 32 hours per week based on a $42,000 annualized salary, which is the minimum starting salary in the Methodist Church. There was discussion of whether we should be paying for her health insurance. Is providing health insurance a value of our community and can we afford it? Apparently she can be added to her husband’s insurance policy for about $200/month and we could simply subsidize that. Or we could see if we could add her to Cathedral of Hope’s insurance. We decided that whether and how to pay for Courtney’s health insurance is a decision for the community and we will be discussing that at this Sunday’s community meeting.

Two proposals were made for additional paid staff. There is a proposal that we hire a part-time music minister that would be paid for 20 hours a week. There was a second proposal that we hire an administrative person for 10 hours a week. It was decided that we should not include those items in the budget at this time because our financial situation is uncertain. If the community decides that additional paid staff is desired, hopefully we will be able to include these as budget items in the future as our financial situation stabilizes. For the time being, the music team has volunteered to do the music planning. As far as administrative work, Teri has volunteered to print the programs each week and Scott will continue to do some administrative tasks on an unpaid basis.

This week’s community meeting will focus on budget and financial issues. Scott is going to present the basic vision behind the budget and either Alan or John Means will moderate the meeting. The team will be preparing the following documents for presentation and discussion:
1. John volunteered to write up a summary of the giving to the church over the last 12-18 months.
2. Wes is finalizing the budget based on our discussion.
3. Teri will write up an explanation of the extra expenses that we have between now and July.
4. Rob will draft financial pledge cards to be handed out this Sunday, which we will ask to be turned in next Sunday, April 26.

Love and Worship

Last night at the transition team meeting I suggested that when I come back from the Alliance of Baptists Conference we could begin a series of conversations looking at I Corinthians with questions in mind from our community about who we are and how we hope to grow into the future. The team was supportive of the idea, and we settled on the idea of looking at the various characteristics of love outlined by Paul in this book, especially as articulated in chapter 13:
1If I speak in the tongues[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I hope that looking at how we love each other in community and support each other on the Way of Jesus could be a nourishing topic for us this Eastertide, or the fifty days which are all one long feast time in the Christian liturgical year. If you are interested in planning worship or helping to lead a Wednesday night conversation, please join me at one or more open-door worship planning sessions every Monday from 6-7:30pm at Hunky's Old Fashioned Hamburgers 321 N. Bishop Ave.Dallas, Tx. 75208
En paz,

Courtney, community pastor