News « Urban Grace

It is the Council’s intention to keep the congregation of Urban Grace well informed as we transition into our future. We will be doing this in many ways including email, Chimes, congregational meetings, listening sessions and announcements. However, if you have a question or concern, please feel free to approach any Council member (Helen Wylie, Sergio Hernandez, Adam Ydstie, Angela Greenshields, Stacy Stevens, David Seely, Steve Smith and Betsy Erickson).

This has been a busy month for your Council members. We started out this January by organizing a special service to honor Tad on his last Sunday with us at Urban Grace. It was a time of celebration for all the love, friendship and wisdom he poured into all of our lives over the past 4 1/2 years. We are grateful for Tad’s ministry at Urban Grace and will miss him very much. We offer our best wishes for him and his future endeavors.

The Council has chosen not to get an interim pastor immediately. We felt this decision would give us some financial breathing room, time to decide who Urban Grace is, and help us identify which direction God is leading us. In the mean time, we are a talented congregation who is well equipped to continue the day to day activities of the church. Our transitional team is taking on the responsibility of organizing our Sunday worship service and the spiritual care team is meeting many of the personal “pastoral” needs of the congregation.

We feel much support from our Tacoma spiritual community. There have been many people who have offered to help Urban Grace in any way needed. The council has been in contact with leaders of Associated Ministries, Presbyterian Church (USA), and Evergreen Association of American Baptist Churches. We are grateful for their support during this journey.

The last two Sundays in January, the Council and Trustees facilitated several listening sessions for the congregation to voice their thoughts about four specific questions. Thank you for making those sessions a wonderful success. We had 87 people participate in the process! The answers given were insightful, well thought out and encouraging. All your thoughts were written down and will be used at our leadership retreat set for February 11^th. The staff, council and trustees will meet to work out a direction for Urban Grace as we continue on this journey together. We are excited about what God has in store for us. Please be in prayer for the leadership of Urban Grace on that day as we work though some important ideas.

I want to say a special thank you for all Jennifer Dean has been doing to help us through these transitions. She has been working hard to keep things going smoothly day to day and we appreciate it.

Lastly, thanks to you for being so responsive as a congregation during this time of change. Many of you have stepped up to help serve as new needs have surfaced. If everyone works together, the burden is light. So, thank you.

Sincerely,

Betsy Erickson, Council Co-Moderator

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February Trustees Report

Posted by jdean on January 31, 2012 at 7:31 pm

The Urban Grace Board of Trustees consists of Cheryl Hernandez (member at-large), Holly Powers (Secretary), Nils Wickman (Treasurer), Willie Stewart (Vice-President), and Bruce Erickson (President). The Trustee Board was created last summer to provide focused, additional support in overseeing the management of the resources of Urban Grace, including financial and property resources, as well as policies designed to protect those resources. The Trustees are accountable to the Core Leadership Council.

When the Board was formed in August, the Trustees began researching each area of responsibility. Out of this came a list of topics for which we are exploring and implementing best practices. Some key topics in which progress is being made include:

Youth and Family Policies. The policies are designed to protect children and youth from abuse, and to assure that abuse is properly reported to legal authorities. Working with our insurance carrier and several resources, Holly has coordinated the effort to make sure our policies have been revised to keep pace with current community standards. Staff and volunteer training on the revised policies is scheduled to begin shortly.

Financial Controls. Financial controls involve reports and procedures designed to clarify our financial status, and protect the church from misuse of funds. With Nils providing coordination, the Trustees have enacted some additional controls designed to increase the level of protection for the church, and continue to seek better controls by reviewing best practices at other churches. The Trustees are also seeking to identify an independent party capable of conducting an internal audit, to give an additional level of protection.

Property Management. Regular connection and reporting have taken place with CTM regarding the management of the property, with Bruce serving as the primary liaison from the Trustees. As CTM nears the end of its term of service, the Trustees will be coordinating transition back to church management of the property.

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