United Church of God, an International Association
Council of Elders Meeting Report

Wednesday, October 16, 2002 – Teleconference
 

A quorum of the Council of Elders met today by teleconference to discuss material dealing with the Amendment Committee, a modification of Human Resource policy, the newly appointed Council parliamentarian’s role, and the agenda for the December meetings in Cincinnati. The meeting concluded with an executive session to discuss Richard Pinelli’s request for a new ministerial hire.

Amendment Committee

Gary Antion reported first on the search for one new committee member and one alternate to serve on the Amendment Committee (whose members must be elders not in the employ of the Church). After some discussion of the candidates who had been contacted, the Council quorum balloted unanimously (Leon Walker not present due to travel commitments) to ask Ed Smith to serve as a committee member, and to ask Rick Avent to be the alternate.

The Council also unanimously approved by consent without resolution a document providing guidelines for the amendment process for Statements of Concern, Statements of Justification, and Congregational input.

December Meetings

The remaining items of business all looked ahead to the next Council meetings in December at the home office.

First, the Council discussed modifying the policy for reimbursing employees’ meal expenses. The suggestion, first proposed in August, involves straightforward adoption of the Internal Revenue Service per diem guidelines, thereby standardizing the approach for all employees of the Church. Since this impacts the work of Treasurer Tom Kirkpatrick, who is currently putting the finishing touches to a Human Resource handbook for all employees, the matter was tabled until December, in order to consult Mr. Kirkpatrick first to clarify some accounting technicalities.

Next, the Council turned its attention to the newly created advisory post of “Council parliamentarian” created at the May 2002 meetings. Matthew Fenchel was appointed, and has been researching and studying material connected with his new role. The question for the Council was: did they wish him to take a correspondence course to prepare for that role, or simply focus on familiarization with the Church’s own governing documents? Jim Franks raised the point that no job description exists yet, and asked how it was possible to specify what training was needed if the job isn’t defined? Clyde Kilough cited the (May) resolution as being the only job description Mr. Fenchel is working with at this point. Richard Thompson referred to the Council report of May 8, which he believed indicated more focus on internal documents rather than broader study into parliamentary procedure.

Mr. Fenchel suggested this approach: that he should go ahead and enroll in the basic course available by correspondence (cost is minimal), be able to return to the Council and say “this is what a parliamentarian does – what do you want me to do for the Council?” Mr. Antion, as the Council member who originally proposed the appointment, stated that this course made the most sense to him. Mr. Kilough then asked Mr. Fenchel to go ahead with course enrollment, and be ready to begin his task in December based primarily on familiarity with the Constitution and Bylaws of the Church. He also asked the Ethics, Roles and Rules Committee, to ask the committee to start forming a job description.

Finally, Mr. Kilough, who has been the chairman of the Christ-centered Servant Leadership task force (Mark Winner was approved today to be the new chairman), proposed that the Council, U.S. regional pastors and home office administration staff attend a one-day workshop on servant leadership at the Council’s next meeting in Cincinnati on Monday, December 9. The task force is ready to begin implementing one of its mandates to develop a curriculum for workshops and seminars to be required of all employees. With the U.S. regional pastors also in Cincinnati for their annual meetings, this is a prime time for the Church’s leadership to be together in moving forward this next stage of program development. The workshop will be videotaped with the intent that the regional pastors can present it to the field ministry, using the same approach that was so successful in introducing the pastoral evaluation program two years ago. Videotaping will provide a means for disseminating this information to other areas as well.

The Council then concluded the day’s meeting in executive session.
 

 -Doug Johnson

© 2002 United Church of God, an International Association