February 10, 2021

Holy Trinity Council Meeting Agenda

Thursday, February 10, 2021 6:00pm

Held online via Zoom

Present: Tim Krick, Cristina Dolcino, Kristen Crawford, Julie Moore, Judy Evans, Linda Edwards, Paul Karl, Erlinde Beliveau

We Gather In God’s Name

Opening Prayer

  1. Blessings
  2. Thank You Cards
  3. Meeting minutes January 14, 2021 - approved on line

We Celebrate and Give Thanks for the Past

  1. Treasurer Report
    • See attached report
    • Additional Addendum:
      • Linda determined that we do not qualify for Payroll Protection. Reason: The current round of Payroll Protection requires a quarter with at least a 25% loss. We had a good year and our total offering income for 2020 was almost 94% of 2019.Quarterly figures for offering income year over year were: 86%, 98%, 109%, 88%. If monies for building use are added, the numbers change almost not at all as sums both before and after are small compared to offering income. And those numbers do not include all the other income, that includes both the funds people give for internal purposes and the funds we gave away as benevolence.
    • Motion/Second/Approved: To authorize Kristen Crawford to have access and signatory favor to the mission endowment fund as well as other church funds.
  2. Secretary Report
    • See attached report
    • Discussed Dave Mercer’s request to provide a reopening date to expedite the Alarm system company to follow through with the necessary work that needs to be completed before reopening.
      • Plan: To determine a time later in the meeting following our discussion on Covid statistics and reopening.
  3. Pastor’s Report
    • See attached report.
    • 16 Lenten packets have been distributed to people in states as far as FL, MN, etc. as a result of Tim’s posting on facebook.
  4. Ministry Team Reports
    • Serve the Lord - Paul
      • See attached report
      • Council supported the decision for gifts to Bonnie which includes a prayer shawl and gift card to Wentworth Greenhouses.
    • Grow in Faith- Julie
      • See attached report
    • Come Together - Linda
      • No report

We Seek God’s Direction for our Church

  1. Request to Council for Church to support the need of an individual
    • Seacoast Interfaith Sanctuary Coalition is supported by local churches and in turn provides sanctuary to immigrants in the seacoast. A woman, by the name of Claudine ___receives support from this Interfaith Coalition. Claudine has attended our zoom church service for the last couple of weeks. Dot Kasik is requesting the sum total of $600 in order to help support Claudine in purchasing groceries for 3 months (April-June). The council supported this action with the monies coming from voluntary donations from church members. This opportunity for members will be formally made once Tim has a conversation with Dot and/or Claudine to determine the request.
  2. Conversation about how we understand a gift vs a bonus
    • Bonus
      • money is taken out of the church funds
      • Taxable
      • Often given for a stated reason (e.g. hard work)
    • Gift
      • Money collected from voluntary donations
  3. Returning to in-person services data analysis and discussion.
    What are the parameters and data for in-person services to take place?
    • Pastor Tim
    • Guiding questions: How do our actions impact the greater community? Where do we get our numbers from?
    • Discussion: examined charts provided by Covid Act Now, discussed factors of vaccinated people, new variants, CDC guidelines, ELCA guidelines. Pastor Tim is willing to provide services. Can we define a marker for when reopening can occur?
    • Decision: Our present marker is that while Rockingham County is in the red zone, and remains in the red zone, we will not have in person church services. This will be re-visited during our next council meeting.

Sources of local data below for review prior to meeting: 

Here is the most recent information for Strafford County
https://covidactnow.org/us/new_hampshire-nh/county/strafford_county/?s=1550490

Here is the most recent information for Rockingham County
https://covidactnow.org/us/new_hampshire-nh/county/rockingham_county/?s=1550490

Here is the most recent information for the state of New Hampshire
https://covidactnow.org/us/new_hampshire-nh/?s=1550490
  1. Conversation about the future of Holy Trinity with Pastor Tim
    • Pastor Tim presented slides summarizing the article titled “The Nuclear Family was a Mistake” (which Council members read) as well as other statistics relating to trends in the Church. Leading slide: Called to the Church vs. Called to be the church. Pastor invited us to take the time to ponder and examine how our present operating system that was very effective 50 years ago may no longer serve us and others in today's culture and world we live in. He cautions us to take the time to determine the hardware program we will use before we implement and “buy into” different software programs (such as let’s try this program to see if this reaches out to others, etc.). Our first step is to determine who we are and what we are about.
    • Discussion ensued.
    • Plan to discuss the first chapter of a book titled, How To Lead When You Don’t Know Where You’re Going: Leading in a Liminal Season by Susan Beaumont. (Amazon $28.00)

We Look to the Future

  • Agenda Items for next month
    • Continue discussion regarding Covid status and church reopening.
    • Begin process of reviewing bylaws. Pastor Tim will talk with Russ about beginning this process and the procedure to do so.
    • Revisit providing Dave Mercer a date for reopening to expedite his work with the Alarm company.
  • Upcoming calendar review (next two months)
    • Council Meetings: March 11, 2021, April 8, 2021
    • Ash Wednesday and Lent discussion (Feb. 17th)
    • Easter discussion (April 4th)

Closing Prayer