Learning Ministry Team minutes

Last meeting: Sept. 9, 2008

Attendees:

Jill Gretzinger

Barry Hoff

Kathie Kommers

Gloria Luebke

Sharon Orsted

Peter Peregrine

Staff:

Anita Damon

Donna Haberland

Excused:

Pamela Knaack

Items that may require Council action: None

Items that may require budget/finance coordination: None.

Important items of information:

• A joint task force on new parent ministry” has been created with Congregational Life. They will be looking at ways to help new parents raise children in Christian hope and joy. As a first step, a new parent’s prayer series will be offered in October as part of Wednesday LIFT.
• Library Committee will be hosting a book fair again this fall; tentative dates are Oct. 18 and 25. Details will be included in the October FELC newsletter.
• Recruitment of teachers for Sunday school and confirmation is taking up too much of Anita and Donna’s time. They need help! The ministry team agreed to search the Internet and talk to other churches to come up with “best practices” resources for discussion at our October meeting.
• Mo requested we consider creating a standing subcommittee of the Learning Ministry Team to deal with confirmation. This will be decided next time after we determine the steps needed to create a subcommittee.
• Copies of the Youth and Children’s Ministry Handbook were distributed. Ministry Team members were asked to review it. There is a concern about what we do if we find people have been convicted of minor offenses. The current handbook says nothing, but the volunteer application implies that people may not be eligible to volunteer if they have been convicted of “felonies, misdemeanors and ordinance violations.” Several members of the ministry team will look into the issue and bring a recommendation to a future meeting.
• There is interest in adding a family VBS and perhaps a second session of regular VBS to next summer’s line-up of events. This will be added as a goal for next year.
• Ministry team goals for 2008 were distributed and reviewed. Goals for 2009 will be discussed at the next ministry team meeting.

Submitted by:

Peter N. Peregrine