Servant Board
Minutes of the Latest Meeting
INDIANA PARTNERS FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY AND
MISSION
Minutes of
May 13, 2008 Servant Board Meeting
The Indiana Partners for Christian Unity
and
Mission
met in regular session on May 13, 2008 at the
Church of
the Holy Trinity in
South Bend,
Indiana. The following members were present:
Dennis Frische-Mouri, Donald Lacy, Tina
Velthuizen, Fran Frellick, Terri Johns, Len Jepson,
Frank Zirille,
Cameron
Manifold, and Chris Wynn. Mary Jo Matheny joined us at
11:30 and
Randy Kuss joined the meeting at
11:45.
The meeting was called to order with the
lighting of the Christ candle at
10:20 a.m.
Cameron then
declared a quorum.
Tina led us in morning prayer from the
Book of Common Prayer.
The minutes of the February 12 meeting
were approved as written after a motion to accept from
Tina with a second by Fran.
PRESIDENT’S REPORT—Cameron reported that
after David Smith had to step away from his
role as treasurer, Alan Overstreet had
agreed to do it. Alan has received word from his
denomination, Indiana Ministries of the
Church of God, that they are no longer going to be involved
in IPCUM, so
he will no longer be a representative on the board and therefore must
give up the
position of treasurer. According to the constitution of IPCUM, Article V-D, the
board can
appoint a person to fill the position till the next annual meeting. Based on
that, Cameron
asked Chris
Wynn to assume the responsibilities of treasurer, but Chris has declined because
of
numerous
other responsibilities. Cameron asked if anyone felt called to that position.
Since no one
volunteered,
the treasurer’s position is still open.
DIRECTOR’S REPORT-----Dennis handed out
written copies of his report. Highlights of his report
include meeting with the Rotary Club of
New Castle, where Donald said that he did an excellent
presentation. He also attended an
ecumenical event of the North Conference of the
United
Methodist
Church.
Dennis passed around a copy of a program
from the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity that he was
involved with in
Indianapolis. This event, sponsored by the Church Federation of Greater
Indianapolis,
gave him the
opportunity to nurture his relationship with Angelique Walker-Smith and Father
Beitans,
the
ecumenical officer for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis.
Dennis also reported that Dick Hamm has
agreed to be the keynote speaker and retreat leader for the
annual meeting and leader’s retreat,
as well as the servant board retreat, on February 9 & 10, 2009.
Now as we invite our judicatory heads, we
will be able to give them date, location, and speaker. He
suggested that we have the board retreat
on the 9th, followed in the evening with the annual meeting,
and start the leader’s retreat that same
evening after the annual meeting with maybe an hour presentation.
The leader’s retreat would then continue
on the 10th, while the servant board meeting was going on.
All thought this was a good idea, so we
will plan on doing it.
TREASURER/FINANCE REPORT----There was no
report, but Dennis did say our finances are okay
for now. Concerns were voiced around the
table regarding the different judicatories and their budgets
being cut, which may affect ecumenism and
our donations.
Len Jepson led the prayer of confession
from the Book of Common Prayer.
As an education segment of our meeting,
Fran led a discussion on the document published by the
UCC on Race, Unity, and Prophetic
Ministry. Through the discussion, we all agreed that racism is
not a thing of the past, that it is
present today by it’s absence, i.e. no diversity in some of our congregations
and at the IPCUM table. We have
come a long way, but we are not there yet. The question remains,
“how do we know when we get there?”
Dennis doesn’t believe we’ll ever know if we get there, because
we’re not willing to understand the gap.
Fran believes that our ability to talk about our pain is lacking----
we don’t voice our pain. We need to find
something we can all commit ourselves to.
Reverend Bill Wassner joined us at
noon as our guest for lunch. He is the new executive
director of
the United Religious Community in
South Bend.
Fran led the statement of faith by
reciting the Apostle’s Creed.
Tina prepared a delicious lunch of
sandwiches, two kinds of lentil soup, and some great desserts.
The lunch offering of $73 went to the URC
(United Religious Community)
Advocacy
Center.
When we were called back to order at
12:55, Rev. Wassner explained some of the work of the URC.
In his offerings of community wide events,
particularly to the faith community, he would like to
cooperate with us on something in the future.
ECUCAMP----Randy Kuss passed around a
written director’s report for Ecucamp. Though the fall
2007 event was unsuccessful, the spring
2008 event had seven campers and three staff members.
The counselors are all willing to do it
again.
Randy reported that the
Kentucky
model, which we based our program on has also gone away
from the
week long program. They now are doing an overnight lock-in, “coming to your
town.”
Some ideas Randy had were a possible
EcuCamp II for returning campers or for college students,
as Della would like to see something for
college students also. Some other suggestions or ideas
were having it on a long weekend, such as
President’s Day weekend and since the response has
mostly been from central
Indiana to
have the event in
Indianapolis.
Concerns were how to get more adults
involved and recruitment of campers. We have a good
product, but the director can’t be the
prime recruiter. The burden has to rest on the Ecucamp
planning committee and IPCUM, still
remembering that it is a selective recruitment.
Another concern is money. As of now,
Randy’s contract is up. Randy suggested that we were
paying him too much for the amount of kids
he works with. It was suggested that we solicit
grants from our denominations to support
Ecucamp.
Randy brought some leftover t-shirts,
which you can either take or make a donation for, and
then wear them as walking billboards to
promote Ecucamp.
After Randy’s report, he left and
Cam asked
what action we should take on Ecucamp. Dennis is
concerned
that the planning committee is too small and needs more denominational
representation.
It was
suggested that maybe each denomination have a representative on the committee.
It was also
suggested
that someone go to the church youth camps/retreats to recruit campers. Another
suggestion
was to go to service clubs, such as the Rotary Clubs, for money and
recruitment.
Tina moved that we move ahead with
planning to have another Ecucamp. After a second by
Chris, and a suggestion by Fran that it be
understood that we have more partner representation
on the planning committee, the motion
passed unanimously.
There are two more meetings for 2008.
August 19 at the Interchurch Center in
Indianapolis, hosted by Mary Jo
Matheny, and November 18 in Mishawaka,
hosted by Len Jepson.
A constitution and by-laws review
committee was established to look over and edit/modify the
changes/revisions that Dennis had made.
These will then be presented to the board for a vote
by the November meeting at the latest.
The committee will be Frank Zirille, Fran Frellick,
and Terri Johns.
Cam
suggested that because of the time (2:15), we not try to do task force
committees today,
but that
next meeting we would do the task forces early.
Mary Jo explained that to explain the
pre-cautionary principle that she would need at least
2 ½ hours, which we didn’t have time for.
Joys and prayer concerns were shared.
Joys
1) Terri’s upcoming wedding on
October 4th.
Prayer Concerns
1) Chris—Salvation Army is
going through moves, new appointments, which
will uproot families, and cause challenges for cores.
2)
Cam----Other congregations who are also going through
moves and upheavals.
3) Terri----3 year old
granddaughter, Maggie, having tonsils and adenoids out on
Thursday, May 15th, because of severe breathing problems.
4) Tina----May 28th,
a gathering of Anglican & Catholics concerning the documents
of agreement.
5) Donald----for our president
of IPCUM and executive director
6) Fran—for the peace group
that meets once a week and our struggles to pray
for our enemies.
Cam
closed the meeting with prayer at 2:35 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Terri Johns, secretary
For More Information Contact:
secretary@ipcum.org
Indiana Partners for Christian Unity and Mission
PO Box 88790, Indianapolis, IN
46208
