Minutes, 4/22/08

Building Committee
Minutes
April 21, 2008
5:00 pm

Opened with devotions led by Pr. Dawna.

Ron Landeck amended agenda to include:
Discussion of missions identified in Heart of Emmanuel project
Discussion of the guiding principles of the building committee

Ron’s thoughts: What are the beliefs & understanding of our mission? Bob Baker from Lutherhaven recently completed a major (and successful) capital campaign. He has a powerpoint presentation that has lots of information about trends & church attendance in the United States. Part of understanding our mission is understanding our wider community. Pr. Dawna said all attendance is down in all ministries of mainstream Protestant churches across the country: Sunday School, Bible school, church. Emmanuel needs to figure out what to offer that would be central to a mission in Moscow.

Carolyn Todd will research & provide some demographic data on Moscow & surrounding community before the next meeting.

Questions to consider: How do we develop a vision? The original Heart of Emmanuel study asked people to project 40+ years into the future to see where Emmanuel would be. A vision statement was not constructed after the Heart of Emmanuel meetings.

Kurt Olsson: The Worship committee has to consider many different avenues of worship; a traditional approach and a modern approach. Both need to be respected, embraced. Worship is a rich concept with a diversity of views, all of which have not been tapped. This is a big project.

P. Stewart: How do we broaden that conversation to include as many voices as possible?

Kurt: We need a paragraph on our vision of new & old worship; we need to publish it and discuss it. We need to work to engage everyone. Kurt feels this part of the conversation has not yet occurred.

General discussion, questions raised:
Where are we in the church today as far as people, ie, ages, families v. singles, etc.? We do know a healthy church has a spread of ages. How does our church compare? We really need to look at our building and say, how can this building serve us best as we move into the future? Are we now welcoming to groups that didn’t necessarily participate in church leadership when the building was constructed, ie, women and disabled? Are there other groups we need to consider? The elderly (sound)? Although we need to have a long range plan, we can still talk about specific issues like those listed above.

Ron wants to make sure the youth are considered and their opinions solicited. What do we lack now that will draw and retain a young membership? Maybe we need to think about a new building, with an area for a gym to draw in kids, possibly with a music venue. What kind of worship attracts the youthful members of Moscow? Are we providing it?

Mike Whiteman recommends reading the book “Becoming Lutheran” by Dave Daubert. Daubert discusses many of the issues above, and provides help for building guiding principles. Pr. Dawna has already ordered these.

Announcements:

Meeting structure: monthly meetings with a subcommittee meeting. Building committee meetings will be on the 4th Tuesday of the month at 6:30 pm and will last until 8:30.

Subcommittees: formed to study individual issues in more depth. Subcommittee meetings need to be announced in the bulletin and at announcements at church.

Report from Interior Systems Cmte: Vern Kinnison, Steve Fountain, Neil Martin, Garth Sasser. Looked at each current system, including sound systems, acoustics & lights. Carolyn will forward reports from “team” meetings.

Ron urged everyone to be sure to use the blog, email, etc to keep the process transparent.

Tom suggested every subcommittee pick a mission or two to focus on. Example: the ability currently to invite other people to perform music in our sanctuary space – combine vision and practicality.

Meeting closed with prayer.

Carolyn Todd