BOE Semi-Annual Report to Congregation November 2015

The church fall season is in full swing again. It has been our pleasure to have had the opportunity to pray for those in the congregation who have requested that the Elders pray for them and after the service “under the cross” on communion Sundays. It has been exciting to see God at work in the lives of our people as we have seen people healed, healthy babies arrive and God's peace descend over people. How amazing is our God! If you would like the Elders to pray for you all you have to do is ask.

This is also a new season for the BOE. The BOE is elected at the Annual Meeting (AGM) in June. The BOE begins it's year with a meeting in August and then meets the second Tuesday of each month. The BOE is made up of 9 Elders and Pastor Ian and Pastor Ed (as a non-voting member). BOE activities include monthly meetings, standing committee meetings, and meeting with pastoral staff and other elders to edify and support each other. Our main goal is to provide vision, governance and direction to Pastor Ian and through him to the rest of the staff and congregation.

We have been working on a new strategic vision plan to give our staff direction for how we feel God wants us as a church to go. We have been working on this for the past 15 months involving much prayer and discussion. We have also spent a couple of retreat days together working through ideas and concepts. We look forward to sharing more details in the near future. Stay tuned.

Recently completed BOE items:

•  We continue to prayerfully work towards the development and clarification of our new Strategic Plan we are calling  “The Transforming Journey.”  You will continue to hear more about this in the months to follow.
• BOE prayer retreat.
•  Approving the designation of the October Justice and Compassion offering fully towards responding to the European Refugee Crisis in financially assisting the efforts of Food for the Hungry and The C&MA.  Approval of numerous Short Term Missions trips. Development and planning for church wide missions projects (details coming in December).
•  Implementing various amendments to our policy to keep things up to date and effective. 
• Committees work plans for the coming years.

This is the first in what will become a semi-annual (November and May) update from the Board of Elders (BOE) to the congregation. We desire to let you know a little of what we do to help in how our church functions as a whole.

We pray for you regularly, the Elders gather on the third Sunday of each month, and specifically as requests are made know to us. We value your prayers for us and our Pastoral and support staff. Thank you for your faithful support of God's church at Foothills and we hope you find the peace and hope of Advent as we move towards Christmas.

On behalf of the BOE,

Greg Thomas, Chairman.