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VC – 12 July Congregational Meeting

There were three things we looked at during our congregational meeting.

1) Finances

Overall in regular giving this year we’re behind budget. Not a huge concern, but something we want to bring to the attention of Village Church regulars. You can see on the graph below:

VC-toJune

If Village Church is your home church and you’re not already giving, consider how you can support the work of the Gospel through Village Church. More information can be found at vc.org.au/giving

2) Finding a new Pastor

According to Steve Mason, we’ve been looking for someone to “replace Derek… though we don’t want to say it like that,”. We’re talking to a number of people at the moment, and will be placing formal ads soon. A large part of the work at the moment is talking to people through known relational avenues who might be good for the job. It’s an ongoing process and we’ll keep people updated as developments progress.

3) Morning Service

When we planted in 2009 there were two children: Derek’s sons. In God’s kindness there are something like around 30 children in the Village community. It’s been on our minds (and a few of the parents’) for a few years that a church service ending at 6:30 might be difficult for parents and their young children to attend. We know that some people are very keen, some people are happy for it to happen but not to join, some think it’s unwise. At the moment we just want to raise the issue to see how people are feeling – whether it’s not an issue or whether it’s a seriously pressing issue. Ultimately the reason to plant in the morning is to have more opportunities for people to hear the Gospel and grow, but there are always pragmatics to consider around that. And because we want to decide as a community, we’re just testing the waters to see how people are feeling.

Questions asked from the floor (Sorry if your question got missed!):

Why now? Isn’t the priority to find a pastor before we plant?

Absolutely that’s the priority. But we want to just make sure that the person coming in to Village will have something to come in to.

Can’t people find another church if they desperately want a morning service?

Yes, but that’s less than ideal. We want people to be committed to the Gospel, and under that, committed to each others lives. So it’d be better if instead of people heading off because they couldn’t handle the timeslot, that we had a conversation as a community about how we move forward.

How do we let you know how much we do or do not want a morning service to happen?

We’ll be putting out a survey. Stay tuned. It’ll help us know where you’re at. We’ll then present those results back to you, summarized.

What will it look like?

If we did it soon, it would look the same but at 9:30am. Most likely.

We planted with two elders from the MPC pool and haven’t changed that—will there be any change in eldership or anything?

We are thinking about that currently. We want to make sure that in transition between pastors there’s a good, broad base of leadership at Village, so we’ll be coming back to you soon with where we land on that. It’s an important issue.

What will the extra costs be for having an extra congregation?

Tim Kuswadi steps to the mic An extra congregation will cost a little bit more – not double, but more. We will definitely do a financial report to look into that.

What if we don’t find someone by the end of the year?

There is the possibility of Village Church going for a brief time without a minister, but Derek was away on holidays recently, and Village didn’t burn in to the ground. Because we’re part of the wider MPC network we have support there. It’ll be hard, but we’re blessed with lots of capable people.

How are we looking for the new guy? Are we going through people we know, or are we putting an ad on Seek.com, or—?

Two avenues. First, we’re going through people we know. There are places at Bible Colleges, such as Moore, to advertise roles like this. Also, we have a list of about thirty people whom we’re contacting to register their interest, first and foremost. Secondly, we’ll be publicly advertising through a few avenues to put the word out there and see what we get – places like Christian magazines, websites etc. That’s happening soon.