Report: Annual Meeting

We elected five council members at yesterday’s annual meeting. Scott Carter, Deb Brandt and Mike Hrabchak won three year terms, replacing Mike Willis, Donna Sparber and John Gemma.  Blake Ward was elected to a one-year term as the young adult member (he had been filling out Taryn Hoover’s term), and Laura Hockenberger was elected to the one-year post as youth member, replacing Johnny Buchanan.  I wanted to thank the newly-elected members for offering a generous slice of their free time for the next three years to tend to the congregation’s business. We’ll keep you in prayer.

To Mike, John, Donna and Johnny  – words are insufficient to thank you for your service, but it’s a good start. If you haven’t done so, fellow members, make it a point to tell these folks how wonderful they are. And while you’re at it, seek out the rest of council, too, for a few words of support and appreciation.  

Attending every meeting (I think) since last August makes me the council’s number one fan – it’s number one gadfly, you might say.  And I’ve served two terms on council myself.  Combined this puts me in a unique position, as a non-member, to comment on the effort and care that has gone into serving on Esperanza’s board. It was not a fun year, and John, Mike and Donna as officers bore the brunt of the emotions that churned like a stalled storm system in our midst. I cannot report on what might have been said to these folks in private conversation, but I know from watching body language during meetings that they listened to a lot of talk, including some that was unfair, untrue and unkind. Meetings were long and sometimes punctuated with hot discussions. There were difficult decisions to be made, some of them very painful and unpopular. Through it all – Mike Willis especially – they remained calm, listened patiently and when confronted with bitterness they responded with kindness. Leadership demands much, and Mike is now my model for leading well.

Given how demanding council membership can be, a three-year term can seem like an eternity. It’s one of the reasons why nominating committees have so much trouble finding candidates. Yesterday we took the first of two votes that will change the three-year council term to a two-year commitment. Pastor Steve explained that because this is a constitutional change rather than a bylaw amendment, we have to vote it at two consecutive congregational meetings before it can go to synod for review and finally go into effect.  And so, we’ll have to vote again in January. The new two year terms could then be phased in starting next May.

In other business yesterday:

• We elected three members to attend the Synod Assembly June 17-19 in Tucson: Bob and Carolyn Mullin and Liz Farquhar
• We elected  six to the nominating committee: Peggy Wagner, Alice Venezia, Donna Sparber, Joni Thorpe, John Gemma and Mike Willis
• We accepted reports from committees and task forces. John Gemma reported that the new finance committee has met, and is working on a more comprehensive and understandable way of reporting church finances to the congregation. He also presented a status report showing that we are $4,228 in the black. I am going to see if we can get the reports posted to myesperanza.org so that everyone can read them.

At the end of the meeting, Pastor Steve commented that “ministry is mutual,” and urged us to communicate with each other in direct ways. “Please. Let’s talk,” he said. Amen to that. I hope this will be the year that we re-focus on Jesus and the word, and that we take action on what he calls us to be – that we open ourselves up to the possibility of personal and community transformation. We closed by singing John Bell’s hymn, “Take, O Take Me as I Am”:

“Take, oh, take me as I am.
Summon out what I shall be.
Set your seal upon my heart
And live in me.”

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