Aj Schwanz

Yes, I ditched out on the evening session . . . again. In the past this would be an inconceivable notion, but now that I have a Little One of my own, itís amazing how priorities change and peace about letting things go comes.

The board meeting was . . . interesting. I wonder if Iím going to become the female John Wimber: you know, he started out attending Friends meetings til he got ìkickedî out. If I get kicked out before my dad, dadís going to be awfully jealous.
First item of business: the recognition of the approval by the Executive Council that the Hispanic Task Forceís request for $100,000 was approved! Our board member put together an excellent proposal, and the money from the sell of the Piedmont parsonage (a work intended to strengthen cross-cultural ties) will still be used in multi-cultural ministries. The council challenged the task force to use these funds not only for existing works, but also for works that could begin.

Second, appointments were discussed. A concern was voiced (by guess who? ) to have board members that represent young adults, new works, and hispanic ministries, i.e., representatives from *all* areas weíre working with and targeting. Some of us were assigned to scout out five members of our personal ìconcernî and bring those names for consideration by Mid-Year boards. The board member who collects nomination names reminded us that his term will be coming to an end next year; yours truly was nominated to take his position (thatíll teach me to speak up).
[Shout out to any NWYM young adults interested: PLEASE, if you have a concern for evangelism or would like to participate in the Yearly Meeting on a board level, let me know! Iím tired of being the sole young adult voice - I want a posse].
I asked a question regarding our partnership with the Board of Ministerial Services to purchase copies of ìMore Ready Than You Realizeî for all of the pastors: what happened with that? Has there been any follow-up? Apparently there was quite a healthy, challenging conversation about the reading at pastorís conference. It wasnít just a ìthat was goodî talk, but rather a ìyay, something that verbalizes the thoughts and feelings Iíve been experiencing!î recognition. Not all agreed with the material, and they spoke up, so it was a good, healthy conversation. Many pastors are having their staff and others in their church read the book. I voiced a hope that the pastors will be followed up with at the next pastorís conference: to see how their dance is going.

Focus Conference and Call to Ministry are coming up this year, in September and February respectively. The board member heading up these efforts asked for some help. We discussed whether the board should be putting these conferences on, or if another board/group should be doing it.

Then a good question was asked: should we continue our programs? Itís easy just to keep pouring money and resources into programs that we have established - but are they functional? Relevant? Needed? Should they continue? Weíre going to have discussions re-evaluating these sometime soon.

A member from the Vision Statement committee came to visit to see if we approved of their work so far. In the fall they requested both individuals and churches to ask what they valued about the yearly meeting, how the yearly meeting could help them out, and what they see us needing to do - basically as a means to create a vision, image, and mission statement. A few things were pointed out, such as the fact that Kingdom living wasnít really mentioned, as well as a sentence that talks about being missional (going out) and at the same time drawing people in (heh heh).

And then I voiced a few concerns that Iíll write about in a different post - hence my potential Wimber status.

The financial advisor for the board presented the budget in a brief ten minutes - totally understandable, totally organized. He won the gold star for the day.