10/19/2013
October COBS meeting
Those Present:
Pastor Keith, Oscar, Jane, Brian, Ryan, Cindy
We opened with a devotion from the daily Portals of Prayer for Saturday, October 12th, titled "Error's Maze", which was based on Matthew 28:19, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations". The message was that we don't want anyone to be lost in the maze of error and unbelief and that we may not be preachers or travel far and wide as missionaries, but we are all privileged to tell of His salvation from day to day. We are partners in His mission and our lives and witness should reflect that.
In light of this message, PK shared a handout titled "How Will You Know if Your Ministry is Successful?", which was used for the installation of Elliott Lutz. It stated some grim statistics: 200 million +/- lost people in America. This past Sunday in American this percentage from each generation were NOT in church:
40% of Builders (born between 1927 and 1945)
64% of Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964)
84% of Busters or Gen X (born between 1965 and 1983)
96% of Millennials or Gen Y (born between 1984 and 2002)
Most of the 96% have closed the door on church and are not coming back.
20% of Americans say they don't know a Christian.
57% of pastors would leave ministry for a better job
85% of pastors feel like they are failing.
1,700 pastors leave the ministry per month in the US.
We should be concerned about these stats and where churches are headed today.
Advent dinner : We are going with serving the Advent dinner on Wednesday, 12/18.
More details on time etc to come. PK suggested we contact the Riesers, who could provided BBQ. So I will get their contact information and get in touch with them about the details of possibly making this a reality and get back to everyone. If we do this, we would want to consider asking Rotella's for a bread donation and have BBQ sandwiches.
Treasurer's report: As of 10/06/13 we have $6,364.75. We had a $1,025 deposit on 8/19 and a $1,283 deposit on 8/19. The latter I am guessing is from the burger burn. We had 170.58 in supplies for that event. We also may have a financial need from a family, but we haven't been provided with a $ amount and formal request. I will keep you posted.
SOLE update: Rachel was not able to be at our meeting, but has continued to send updates to those interested via email. Meetings have occurred on Sunday evenings in the past and there should be another coming up, but not sure of the date yet. It sounds like we are not making a lot of progress right now and are waiting on Divine Shepherd to get feedback from their congregation on the idea of partnering with Concordia on an elementary school and Concordia not being able to have any funds to aide in this endeavor until perhaps 2014-15. Divine Shepherd is also considering doing the school on their own. It was stated they have to be final with their budget here in October and it is not sounding like any funds are being earmarked for a school. Brian's take is it wouldn't take a lot to get this going for 2014-15 school year, as they have until May 1, but commitments and decisions will need to be made. Look for an update on this topic soon.
Other topics: Gala is October 25th at CHS. Baseball has been added and CHS has a new coach, Dan Kraft. Interim principal Reed Sander is at Concordia Academy a few days a week until a permanent principal is found. 7th&8th graders had their first service project experiences working with Together Inc and at Liberty Christian Center.
