Men's Retreat Registration 🍂

Elder Update and Family Gathering Follow-Up

If you weren’t able to join the Churchwide Family Gathering on Sunday, this snapshot is for you. In addition to fellowship over a meal and hearing how God is working in various member’s lives, we heard several updates from leaders.

1. Giving and Growth Opportunities

We want to thank everyone for responding well to our request for increased giving. We’re grateful that we have a growing church, and we have growing needs and opportunities as a result. We want to be faithful to address needs as a result. Our desire is to have additional funds in the budget for the following growth opportunities:

Expanding Missions: It is our desire to expand mission’s support both domestically and abroad. We’ve had requests to support new mission opportunities and we want to make sure we are prepared to support them by expanding our mission budget.
Building Renovations: We are looking to optimize our building space for growing ministry needs and refreshing spaces to reflect a more welcoming and hospitable environment. Our building is a resource provided by God and we want to be good stewards in using it well for his work. The lobby renovation is part of a master design plan that would be implemented over the next several years. Potential future projects could include a refresh of children’s ministry area, a missions wall near the coffee area, and various other important spaces in our building.
Staff Needs: We are focusing on staffing to support growing ministries and gaps at ZF. We are glad to welcome Hope Walters to the staff! She is replacing Ka (Freeman) Hoover who retired in July. Additional staff needs may include a worship leader, women’s ministry leader, children’s minister, missions leader, and maybe even an executive/administrative pastor. No decisions have been made, but our current staff is at capacity; additional staff would be needed to support these ministry needs.

Our vision is to grow our giving and budget to increase the utilization of our space, add staff needs, and expand mission’s support.

2. A Window into Eldership and Update on Decision Making Process

We provided a window into some key aspects of our eldership.

Elders Meeting: There are currently 9 elders. We are responsible for the spiritual oversight of the members of ZF and the overall direction of the church. We meet most Monday evenings from 7-10pm, with a couple breaks in the year. Here are a few key areas of focus:

Word and Prayer: Our first hour is spent reflecting on God’s word, sharing various shepherding needs, and praying for our church.
Member Prayer: We are grateful for opportunities to pray for members who come in with health concerns or other urgent matters.
Study: We take time every other meeting to study various topics. We are currently reading through and discussing Carl Trueman’s, Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution.
Shepherding: Every other meeting we take time to update on and pray for members. Each member has a specific elder who is accountable for shepherding. Over 60% of the members are in small groups and we are each assigned to small group leaders to help with shepherding. At our elders meeting, we review one or two small groups (after collecting specific prayer requests and insights from the small group leader or directly from the members), as well as 10-15 members who are not currently in a small group. The goal is for each elder to reach out to the members ahead of time for prayer requests. We then spend time sharing and praying for each member. We also have one elder share a personal update on his own life so we can pray for one another and hold one another accountable to the biblical standards of eldership.

Elder Retreat: We value knowing each other deeply and being accountable to one another. A few weeks ago we enjoyed an overnight retreat. We laughed a lot, we assessed how we’re doing as a team, we spent time going deeper in knowing one another and how we’re doing spiritually, and we looked ahead to some of the challenges and opportunities over the next few years.

Decision Making: We also shared how we make decisions as elders. There are lots of opinions when it comes to how groups make decisions, and the main driver for what decision making method to use is largely driven by the importance of the decision. ZF has historically used a consensus driven model. That’s not to say we all agree the decision is the best option, but that we would all have full support of each decision. This often takes a lot of time. We have recently made a slight change to our process. What has not changed is the value of taking our time, the importance of open discussion and unity, and the centrality of prayer. However, we thought it was important to build in a provision for what to do if we simply cannot reach full alignment. How we make a final decisions depends on the level of importance of the issue.

Level 3: Decisions with minimal impact on the overall direction of the church (regarding aesthetics, design questions, building use, etc). If we do not have full alignment, we will keep seeking agreement, but eventually a simple majority will make the decision.
Level 1: At the other extreme are issues of major significance–changes in our statement of faith and core values, change in the makeup of elders, deacons, and ministry staff. These will still require full alignment.
Level 2: In the middle are significant issues that impact the direction, focus, or operations of the church. For example, the addition of a ministry, a major change in our practice, or something requiring a significant financial investment. We won’t take these issues lightly, we will strive for full alignment, and we will listen, pray, study, collect input, and so forth. If after months of seeking agreement, we will require a ¾ majority in order to move forward with a decision.

We’re grateful for the privilege of serving as elders. And we invite you to reach out to an elder if you would like to discuss any of this further (or email elders@zionsvillefellowship.org). We have copies of the updated decision-making policy if anyone wants to review it further.