NOTES FROM 8/19 SPECIAL CONGREGATIONAL MEETING & NOTICE OF NEXT MEETING ON 9/9

Greetings from Good Shepherd!

Thank you to everyone who attended our Special Congregational Meeting on Sunday.  We wanted to update you with what occurred at the meeting.  The meeting began, after prayer, with Sue Hattimer, Council President, recapping the letter that was recently sent out to congregation members.  Then, Pastor Suzanne introduced a proposal she was presenting to the congregation for consideration.  This proposal is attached to this email.

After the presentation, the floor was open for discussion.  Many members raised concerns about cutting Pastor's hours and/or salary.  Comments were made about the importance of increasing our income and growing our church numerically.  A variety of concerns were raised including commitment levels, accountability, and the responsibility of church members to be involved in growing the church financially, numerically, and spiritually. 

It was decided, based on comments made, that we will hold a follow-up Special Congregational Meeting on Sunday, September 9.  We will again hold one service at 9:30a, followed by the meeting.  This is official notice for this meeting. 

We are aware that this is the day of the Bolingbrook Parade and perhaps other events; we regret that not everyone will be able to join us.  If you have interest and/or ideas to share and are not able to be at the meeting, please send your thoughts to the Church Council and we will be sure they are shared.  Part of the reason for the need to hold the meeting so soon is that we are dealing with financial issues - bills will soon need to be paid and, if offerings don't come in between now and then, we will be forced to make more tough decisions.

If you were not able to attend the meeting today and/or have questions about what occurred, please feel free to contact a Church Council member - their names and email addresses are listed below.

Between now and the meeting on 9/9, please be praying about our church and the ministries that we do; please dream and think about ways that we might think out of the box to grow our congregation; please pray about how you can be more connected and committed to our church.  As was discussed at the meeting, please bring your concrete ideas for growing the church and our ministries...and our resources.  We don't want a meeting where we say, "Yes, we really need to do something" and then we try to figure out what that is.  Rather, we'd like to say, "What ideas do you have" and see how we can begin to implement those that fit.

Thank you for being a part of our church family.  We are blessed and, as Rodney reminded us, we should never devalue who we are, what we do, and how we affect the lives of people every day on behalf of Christ.

Council Members:
Sue Hattimer, President - peacewthn@msn.com
Camille Garcia, Vice-President - compudoccg@yahoo.com
Judy Jordan, Secretary - Jsqrd47@gmail.com
Ronn Young-Black, Council Member-at-large - ronn859@gmail.com
 
Peace.
Pastor Suzanne Anderson-Hurdle

office - 815-886-4354
cell - 815-355-2397