Strategic Planning

There are many activities related to “putting legs on” our Strategic Plan 2020.  The Church Council will be available to provide updates and continue to gather input.

May 22, 2011

Summary

Your Church Council is striving to maintain clear communication with our members as our Strategic Plan 2020 moves forward.  Some ideas provided at Town Hall meetings are provided as “information only,” some are under serious consideration as Council decisions, and some may be brought back to the congregation for a decision.  As a result, a second Town Hall meeting was held to provide information and collect input on the following issues.

• Nursery Aide:  With the increasing number of small children attending church, the Personnel Committee is interviewing candidates to re-staff the nursery with a paid adult and a volunteer.  A 2-hour-a-week, paid position is in the 2011 budget and any potential employee will go through fingerprinting and a full background check, as well as careful screening.  If an interest in providing nursery for Wednesday evening develops, we will consider a similar solution.

• Spanish-language Ministry:  When the Strategic Planning Team identified Critical Issues related to expanding worship opportunities, five of the seven post-it ideas that appeared on the chart specifically identified a Spanish-language service as an important community resource St. Marks should pursue.

An active, Spanish-speaking congregation of approximately 30 members is seeking a new home for worship.  This congregation has been worshiping at Lemon Grove Lutheran and is unable to continue to meet at that location.  The Synod-licensed leader of the congregation has been in conversation with Pastor Ron for several months about the issues at Lemon Grove.  The problems at Lemon Grove Lutheran are unrelated to this small congregation, but have created an untenable situation for this ministry.

If St. Marks decides to support this ministry, the leader would become an employee of St. Marks and the congregation would become a St. Mark’s congregation.  This is different than the relationship we have with either Glory Lutheran (Taiwanese language) or the Arundaum Church (Korean language) who currently pay benevolence to St. Marks for use of the space.

The leader of the Spanish-language congregation is paid $1,000 a month.  If St. Marks decides to adopt this ministry, $500 of the leaders salary would come from the Synod and $500 would come from St. Mark’s benevolence to support this emerging ministry in Chula Vista.  The Synod has accepted the leader into an ordination program (like the pastor of Glory Lutheran did when Pastor Chuck and Pastor Jan mentored her to fulfill the requirements in preparation for ordination).

Church Council is in prayer over this issue and interested in member input and questions to ensure the decision is made with careful consideration and God’s guidance.

• Church Council Vacancy:  Church Council may have up to 14 members and we currently have 9 people serving on Council.  We are looking for several more members who would be willing to take an interim position on Council – July 2010 through January 2011.  We are seeking a broader representation of our congregation, and we are especially interested in a volunteer who would represent our founding St. Mark’s membership.
  
• Action Planning Teams:  Six teams and 32 people are meeting over the next month to research and develop action plans for each of our Strategic Plan 2020 Core Strategies.  If you have interest in participating in any of these conversations, here are the Council leads and the upcoming meeting schedule for each.  Please contact the Lead OR place a note on a pew card (and put it in the collection plate) to provide input to any action plan.  We are seeking a broad range of ideas to help us become the vibrant, relevant congregation we aspire to become by 2020!

April 3, 2011 -

Church Council conducted a Town Hall meeting on Sunday, April 3 to discuss the Howard Gardner Community Charter School.  The Charter approached St. Mark’s to house their new school in December, 2010.  Since two of the Core Strategies identified in the Strategic Plan 2020 are

Expand Outreach and Service and Nurture Youth, Church Council agreed to look into the steps required to adapt St. Marks to house an elementary school.   After lots of prayer and several months of due diligence, including a series of meetings with the Charter leadership, a Charter architect and the City of Chula Vista, it was determined that St. Marks is not a good match for this Charter School.  The critical deciding factors were:

• The school began inquiring about housing 100 students, but by March they were describing a 400 student school—far too many for the St. Mark’s site.
• The City returned their analysis in late March indicating that a “Conditional Use Permit” would take three to four more months of study. This would include gathering feedback from the neighbors and analysis of traffic patterns.  Only after those hurtles are cleared would the City issue permits for any required remodeling.
• In addition, to meet current building codes (triggered by the new Conditional Use Permit), we would need to:
• Re-grade the sloped walkway to make it handicap accessible.
• Put fire sprinklers in all buildings
• Expand and retro-fit all restrooms to meet ADA requirements
• The final, and ultimately most important, issue emerged as it became clear that the amount of space that the Charter school required would seriously interfere with the primary purposes of St. Marks—worship and service.

Charter leadership was very disappointed, but will continue to research sites in the Chula Vista area.  Church Council members supported them by making suggestions of other potential sites.  In the meantime, Howard Gardner Charter will continue to house their office at St. Marks while they locate a school site.  The monthly benevolence contributed by the Charter will cover any additional costs incurred.