Categories
All Sites News Attridge News Council Updates

Council Summer Update

Our FGCC Council wants to be transparent and provide detailed information for our congregations during this time of transition. The following report is a lot of information to take in, but we hope you can find the time to read and process it to know what’s going on in our church as a whole.

Congregations Meeting Follow Up

On June 5th, our three congregations met to discuss and discern together. While we normally approve a budget for the coming year at this time, our current financial situation was discussed, and a motion passed to defer the budget vote for the July 2022 -June 2023 fiscal year until Fall 2022. A motion to formally approve our partnership between FGCC and REVIVE T in Central Asia was also passed. 

There were several comments and questions given to Council through the feedback forms. A full Q & A compilation has been made, please follow this link to read it through.

For all the communication from this meeting, please head to our Congregations Meeting page. 

Council and Staff Mediation

On June 11, Staff and Council met with a mediator to begin the process of restructuring our organization. At this meeting, four communication points were given to staff from Council: 

  1. We have some immediate downsizing to do, due to budget constraints.
  2. We have some staff and strategy structure adjustment to do with our organization to ensure long-term sustainability and health. This work has begun and will continue in the next 6 months alongside the transition work. 
  3. We are an MB church and so all leaders will recommit to the MB Conference and SKMB Common Understandings and Common Covenant Document.
  4. Staff and Council will prioritize and support the transition process. 

Themes that came out of this June 11 meeting (as clarified by the mediator and Council): 

  1. Staff want further opportunities to contribute on the issues being decided.
  2. There is needed transparency, clarity, and consistency on what the process is, including timelines, how decisions will be made, and by whom.
  3. We want to develop trust with Council and staff
  4. Staff appreciate the courage and work of Council and recognize the difficulty of the task they have.
  5. We all want God and FGCC mission to be central to the decision-making process.

Financial Realities

As reported at the congregations meeting, we will end this year in a financial deficit, meaning that our year’s expenses were more than was brought in through our donations. Thankfully, we have reserves that carried us through this decrease in income, however Council understands the need to respond and operate with fiscal integrity. For a fuller analysis of our financial and operational situation, our Finance staff have created a report found at this link.

Staff Structure Changes for our North Site Congregation 

Council has accepted a proposal presented several weeks ago by Nathan McCorkindale, North Site Pastor. Nathan brought forward a proposal to move him to the role of lay pastor and allow our North Site congregation to continue under his leadership, but without the expense of a full-time pastor.

Although the growth mandate given to North Site (through slow fruit using our unified budget as support) allows this congregation to exist at a deficit, our current financial situation has brought some urgency on questions about the best stewardship of our resources that council and Nathan have been asking for a few months already.

As a volunteer pastor, Nathan will offer leadership and pastoral care to the congregation of North Site and will ensure that the ministry of North Site continues as it has been, with the help of the North Site leadership team. Our Council and Staff will work through FGCC’s multi-site direction and bring clarity to our church’s mission moving forward. This will define the relationship and roles for all our sites. This is an idea that Nathan had been considering for a while, and our current financial situation brought forward the urgency to propose it. Council has affirmed this direction. The sacrifice of our North Site congregation to be a volunteer run site is an incredible gift to our church.

Moving Forward

At the June 21 Council meeting, some decisions and action plans were made to move us forward:

  1. Prayer: Council, staff, and many of you in our congregations, have been praying specifically for this process. We are a church that prays and we continue to seek God’s leading and listen to his direction. Council is committed to spending time in prayer this summer and invite our congregation to continue to pray for our leadership in this time of transition. 
  2. 3 Steps for greater financial health: 
    • We will reduce spending in several areas this summer, (including, but not limited to, remuneration) this will provide us some time to create working groups that will give recommendations to council in July and August.
    • We need to reduce our budget by approximately 15% and present this new budget to the congregation in fall. 
    • Council (and staff) will work this summer to restructure our organization around a clearer strategic plan. 
  3. Council created 3 working groups with some members of Council and some appointed staff as advisory work groups that will bring recommendations to Council: 
    • Budget Goals and Ideas Group (led by Joel Dyck)
    • MB Alignment and Code of Ethics development Group (led by Erica Fraser)
    • Restructuring Work Group (led by Anna Robinson)
  4. Council will do some work this summer to re-evaluate priorities of our mission strategy and determine priorities for budget expenditures. (led by Kevin Weins) 
  5. Council will begin to have individual conversations with each staff member (July 15-Aug 15) to evaluate and determine future fit together. 
  6. Council invites conversations and discussion with our congregation members and attendees. Please use the email addresses below: 

As we move forward, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we continue to believe that God will build his church and use FGCC for His kingdom work.