CREST Elders Report

Not sure why, but our CREST attendance grows smaller as the church grows larger! For those who missed it, here is the text of our quarterly Elders Report. (It was, btw, a most excellent meeting with lots of good news!)

Elders Crest Report
July 28, 2010

Sunday Series. One of our responsibilities as pastors is to seek God’s direction as to what is taught here in our gatherings. That means being sensitive not only to the Holy Spirit, but to what is happening in the life of the church. In the last quarter we ended one series that had our pastors telling their stories. I hope that challenged your own life as you heard them tell how God had used His Word and their own unique life experiences to grow them. Then we did a series on family. It was obvious to us that it has been in this area that the devil has worked his hardest among the church. Now we’re in a series that I hope is helping us understand the salvation we possess through faith in Christ.

When this series wraps up we’ll do a short series on how we all fit together as a church. We’ll call it “Body Parts” after what Paul says about the church in 1 Cor. 12.

40 Days of Love. Every two years or so for the last 6 years we’ve pulled together in all our ministries on Sundays, in our daily devotions and in our Connection Groups to do six week series over 40 days. This year we’re doing a new one to us that focuses on the thing Paul said was most important to us as Christians: love. We’ll be studying together 1 Cor. 13. All of our Connection Groups will be doing a six week study taught on DVD by Rick Warren reinforcing what we’ve heard in church on Sunday. If you have never been through one of these 40 Days with us, you’re in for a treat. They always result in a great time of growing for us. I’m building a 40 Days team to work on all the details. We’ve learned some things in the past, and already have our study guides and DVDs on hand. If you would like to serve on the team as we get ready, please let me know by Sunday.

June Baptisms. Six were baptized in June. Then this month we’ve seen 12 more baptized. We have one more baptism scheduled this summer on Aug. 15. It should be the most baptisms we’ve had in a summer that I can remember.

Systems. We are looking a better ways of coupling technology and good management principles to help us accomplish our purposes as a church. We possess a great data base system to help us track groups, teams, events, etc. But we haven’t used it’s potential. So one of our goals this year is to be better organized and see less frustration. For example, we have a system to track those who take “Discovering NHC” and follow them from the class through their commitment to partnership. But the system has some flaws, and sometimes we don’t get the information in a timely fashion to our church clerk. We want to do better with that. One of the things we’ve learned is that usually it’s not the person who is broken, it’s the system.

Finances. Burnie is working on a plan for us to really work at paying our mortgage down. He’ll be sharing that at our next CREST meeting. Our staff are continuing to work part time as we can, and returning our wages to the church. We’ll keep doing that until the economy changes and we’re seeing our giving meet our budgeted needs.

Assimilation Team. We’re still learning how to grow up as a church. We have some ideas as to how to do a better job moving people from “the crowd” to “the committed”, and one of those things we want to do is to establish a team of partners who will help do just that. It will involve things like calling local guests to thank them for attending; helping to plug new attenders into connection groups; and moving partners into ministry.

Building Usage is up. Right now, for example we have 2 AA groups that meet here; a foster parent training class; the Monday night Beth Moore study. Operation Impact met here in June every day. This is the Lord’s building and part of our vision was to make it available to the community for non-profit groups. It’s also available for you for birthday parties, weddings, etc. Because it is being used a lot we have a buildings use request form to fill out if you need it. Sometimes we’re asked by church family if they can borrow chairs and tables. As long as they’re not needed here at that time you’re welcome to borrow them, but we do have a form to fill out so we know where they are and when they’ll be returned.

Although it is the Lord’s building, He’s given us the responsibility to take care of it. So please treat everything like it is the Lord’s. That means if you see something that needs to be picked up or fixed, it’s OK if you go ahead and do it. Thanks to Beth Nelson for coming out on some hot days and pulling weeds in our beds out front!

Wake Up Rally Sept. 18. Across the Chowan Association special rally services are being held to encourage spiritual renewal. We’re having one in our area for Dare and lower Currituck churches here at NHC on Saturday, Sept. 18. You can be involved right now by beginning to pray for God to use the rally to give our local churches a greater passion for being God’s people.

Do you visit our web site, blog, Facebook group or use the pod cast? There’s a calendar on the web site. The blog includes a place to post prayer requests and give updates during the week. The NHC Facebook group also posts info for you who use Facebook. And we’ve seen weekly emails continuing to come into our mailboxes highlighting upcoming events.

We’ve had some requests to put the FAMILY series on disk, so we’re going to do that and will make it available for purchase.

NHCU. Our next NHCU is scheduled for September. If you have not gone all the way around the bases yet, please make it a priority to take your next class. If you have questions about which one to take next, please just talk to one of us.

Your pastors have a monthly meeting that makes time available to you if you need to speak to all of us at once. To get put on a meeting agenda, give Tom Lee a call or email him.