Family Meeting Report

For those who may not have been in attendance, or for a resource for anyone who was present but would like to have it, we wanted to take a moment to share with you what was accomplished during our Spring Family Meeting on Wednesday evening.

First of all, we’d like to say a very sincere thank you to all who came. We had tremendous attendance and that is so important for churches like ours that are governed by a congregational polity where every member matters and has a voice. As I mentioned last night, healthy congregationalism is such a blessing and I’m grateful for the clear communication, cooperation, fellowship, and unity that is demonstrated at our Family Meetings. Healthy congregationalism isn’t designed to produce uniformity, as a diverse body of believers doesn’t always see secondary issues in the same way, but it does lead to unity as the vote of the body sets our direction and we move forward together, and by faith.

Secondly, thank you to our Kitchen Team for preparing yet another wonderful meal for our church family to enjoy. This team works very hard to make this happen so share your thanks with them when you have the opportunity.

With that being said, here’s a brief synopsis of our Family Meeting (if you’d like the official minutes, contact Maddie by emailing church@northandersonbaptist.com)

We began our family meeting with prayer and scripture reading followed by our elected Moderator, Steve Gibson, calling the meeting to order.

Children’s Ministry Chair Ashley Rollins shared that on this Saturday, April 5th @ 9:30 AM, she will be leading a children's church teacher training for children’s church leaders.
She also shared that we will be having a community wide Easter Egg Hunt at Watson Park April 19th @ 10:00 AM (we are collecting easter eggs and individually wrapped candies for this through April 13th)

She also shared that we’ll be having a “Let’s Taco Bout VBS” Vacation Bible School meeting April 27th @ 5:30pm

Bible Fellowship Assistant Director Tim Danyels issued a challenge all in attendance to join a Bible Fellowship Class so that they could build relationships, gain knowledge, and discover their spiritual gifts.

It was mentioned that as a church, approximately 80% of our Sunday morning worship attendance is also engaged in a Bible Fellowship class. What that is incredible and is something to celebrate (most churches struggle to have 50% engagement), understanding the value that Bible Fellowship classes bring, we are shooting for 100%!

Matthew Speer expressed gratitude for those who are engaged in the worship ministry at North Anderson and encouraged members who felt so led to join as well! He reminded us that over the next several weeks, we’ll be employing the use of sacred hymns in our Sunday morning services and would love to have you join the choir on Sunday mornings, helping to aid the congregation in singing these familiar hymns as we worship our King.

Stephen Rollins share a couple of exciting events that are upcoming for our True North Student Ministry and from an operational standpoint, asked that each member of our congregation help to minimize the cost of things such as electricity by making sure that lights are switched off when leaving a classroom. He also emphasized the necessity of making our Properties Team Chair, JD Smith aware of any issues that are noticed as soon as their noticed as it’s more cost effective to address a new problem than repair an old issue.

There were also two motions presented and voted upon.
Motion one came as a recommendation from the Personnel Team to include a paid Maternity Leave (8 week) and Paternity Leave (6 week) policy to our Policy and Procedures Manual.
After discussion, the motion passed and was adopted.

Motion two came as a recommendation from the Finance Team to allocate a budget surplus from 2024 in the following manner –
$20,000 will be used to target existing debt
$10,000 will go into reserves
$5,000 will be sent to the Cooperative Program (in addition to the percentage giving that is already in place)
$2,000 will be used to “seed” a new designated account called the “North Anderson Mission Scholarship Fund”
$1,000 will be sent to our church planting partnership with Reclamation Church New Kensington just outside of Pittsburgh.
After discussion, the motion passed and was adopted.

In new business, as motion was made to form a “Playground Planning Team” to develop a plan and strategy for a new playground on our church campus that will be presented to the church for vote.
Elwood Groves, Robin George, Pam Ehrlich, Lynda Rigsby, and Ashley Rollins were nominated to serve on this team, a vote was taken to approve their nomination and their nomination passed.

It was mentioned that have a designated Playground Fund in place already. If you'd like to contribute towards it, you can do so.

After Moderator Steve Gibson closed our business meeting, Pastor Kyle shared excitement over the new series through the 10 Commandments that we’ll be starting on Sunday and encouraged participation in all that’s going on during the Easter season (Good Friday service on April 18th at 6:00pm, Easter Egg Hunt at Watson Park on April 19th at 10:00am, worship opportunities on Easter Sunday – Sunrise Service at 7:00am and Worship at 9:15am.

Bruce Brown closed our time together with a word of prayer.

Once again, that you for coming to our Spring Family Meeting! We’re looking forward to seeing what the Lord does in and through us here at North Anderson!