MINISTERIUM MEMBERS -
We hope that this email finds you thriving at the start of summer, and as we mark one week out from our first ever, online, two-day Ministerium Annual Meeting! We’re sending along many details and updates below for you to review before our gatherings on the 22nd and 23rd. Please especially note the start times, zoom and fb access info, and deadlines listed in bold for the 22nd and 23rd. You’ll also find more information and documents on our website (www.eccclergy.org/annualmeeting2021) We’re looking forward to seeing you and are praying over our gathering already; you can join me and our prayer team in preparation by reading Isaiah 49:7&8, and listening to our theme worship song for 2021, “This is a Move.“
We’re excited to “see you” all online next week! Grateful- President Liz and the Min Exec Bd.
JUNE 22 - Ongoing Education | Lament, Healing, Repairing, & Leadership, 1-4pm CST
The Ongoing Education portion is being hosted the day before the Business Meeting this year, given the online format, full schedules, and the fact that we all need breaks from being on a screen all day! We’re excited to host Keynote Speaker Rev. Dr. Soong-Chan Rah, speaking on Lament, Healing, and Leadership, and we’ll also hear from Ministerium leaders Rev. Dieula Previlon and Rev. Cheryl Lynn Cain about how we heal, repair, move forward, and protect our joy after this long season of loss, grief, COVID, racial injustice, new normals, and the ongoing changes impacting our world, our churches, and our own denomination.
Join us for a casual and interactive space to be refreshed, hear from God’s Word, share with other colleagues, and to be encouraged by these gifted leaders who bring training in theology, biblical studies, mental health, racial justice and reconciliation, leadership, and their own authentic human selves to this educational offering!
The link for this meeting will be emailed out to all who registered later this week and any questions about how to join this zoom call can be directed to eccministerium@gmail.com. For those who did not register you may view the Continuing Education livestream on our ECCMinisterium Facebook Page.
Please note that we are not doing the New Officer training this evening as originally announced - the rescheduled date for this training is Tuesday, September 14th at 3 pm (CST). Please contact Secretary Laurie Cornell at revmomladc@gmail.com if you’re interested in attending. Training is particularly for all new conference MA Chairs and Treasurers, although all interested Ministerium leaders are welcome.
JUNE 23 - Highlights About the Annual Meeting, 9:30am - 5pm CST
If you registered, please attend! We know that online attendance requires less commitment in certain ways, but we are hopeful that this medium increases access and the voices we hear from this year. Attendees will be muted and off camera for most of the time, and you can vote easily from the comfort of your own home, even in your jammies. :)
Worship starts at 9:30am CST - we will have THEEE Rev. Brandi Sanders and her team leading us, so come get rooted in the Word, in the Spirit, help shift the atmosphere before our collective business together, and to say hi to one another in this casual online gathering and worship space.
To assure your tech is working and to be counted in quorum, plan to join us on the zoom call between 9:30am CST - 9:50am at the latest; during this gathering and worship time we will work with any tech questions, and work to welcome all 500+ folks who have registered!! Yep, that many. Because we have a full day ahead of us, the Business Meeting will start promptly at 10am CST, and quorum count will be taken shortly after that, no later than 10:05am - so in other words, don’t be late! We want to hear from you and see your name on that zoom screen.
There is a deadline of June 21st for any major motions or amendments to be submitted for consideration on the Agenda. Check out the “Standing Rules” posted on our website for more details and info about this and other specifics related to hosting an online business meeting that keeps business moving and encourages engagement.
We are planning to have Spanish language translation available in Zoom for both the Continuing Education and the Annual Meeting; for more information about this contact eccministerium@gmail.com.
Check out the docs and links for the business mtng now uploaded online (https://www.eccclergy.org/annualmeeting2021). Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding as we assembled all these details, after emerging from a crazy year, planning for the first ever online Ministerium Annual Meeting, creatively trying to tackle lots of important realities on our agenda, and keeping you all informed, connected, and encouraged along the way! Our prayer is to serve the wider membership well and make space to listen to what God is doing, among and through and for us all! Sometimes publishing the 6th draft of a document or planning for how to get hundreds of people on a zoom call is the way to do that :)
Voice and Vote - Our Annual Meeting via Zoom and FB
All those who have already registered through the Gather 2021 website will be given credentials to enter into the Zoom meeting space for the Annual Meeting.
You will receive a log-in email this Friday, and again on Tuesday morning when the Meeting begins, that lets you enter the zoom Meeting. If you don’t see/receive this info please contact eccministerium@gmail.com with any tech questions.
The link you receive is not to be shared with anyone else, and it is unique to the email that you registered with; this log-in is tied to your ability to vote during the meeting.
We will be running the meeting as a webinar and will grant speaking privileges as discussion needs arise through the Zoom functions. (Specific instructions about how to appropriately queue and speak from the floor will be given at the meeting - more is outlined in our “Standing Rules” posted online as well.)
Only those who are registered attendees and active or retired members in Good Standing of the Ministerium will be eligible to vote during the meeting.
Associate members are able to join the Zoom call and exercise their voice, but not vote.
Resource persons, guests, or those not in Good Standing are not able to access the zoom link as that link comes with voice and/or voting privileges, but can watch via fb.
The Ministerium Ann Mtng will also be livestreamed (with the exception of the Executive Session portion), and anyone, registered or not, can view/engage in worship, business, updates, and hear discussions here: https://www.facebook.com/eccministerium
Past Events - ReCap of “Lead Loudly” and the Q&A Session
Thanks to those who joined us for either of these recent events and to all who spoke into our Ministerium and church Body in this season. You can find links to both events at our website: www.eccclergy.org/annualmeeting2021 under Business Documents-> 2021. We also want to share a few highlights and clarifications from those events here.
Re Exec Session Minutes - the membership must approve these, the second vote that is up for the members to debate is whether or not to make them public beyond members seeing them. All Ministerium members can request these however, at any time.
Re Churches leaving the ECC at the Covenant Annual Meeting - We named that we were told that four churches are leaving the denomination this year related to the topic of sexuality. To be clear, these churches are all formally part of the "voluntary" track; some of these churches themselves initiated the process, while other churches may not have understood the tracks available or what choices churches in these conversations had, especially related to finances, power, and voice. Naming that there are two tracks, what those are, who is empowered to decide what, and what the Conference and denomination roles are, and where the power is in these choices is part of the crucial conversation that we must keep having moving forward.
Bylaws Amendment - this process started in Fall 2019 as part of our promise to repair the governance gap that existed in 2019, as it pertained to the specific role of Ministerium Ann Mtng related to credentialing. The amendment was discussed, edited, and then recommended by the Exec Comm of the Ministerium; the Board of Ordered Ministry also discussed it and recommended that it be given to the Ministerium to take action on.
The CAC's Resolution on RODD has several supplemental pieces posted online, including a video and Q&A responses.