ROAD CREW NOTES, MARCH 4 2012

1. ROOTS & BRANCHES UPDATES
Pastor Likkel deliberately read through each of the Nine Roots & Branches (see notes from May 2011 Road Crew), reminding members what we united around last year.
Focused on developments, growth in following areas:
Evangelism Beyond Sunday; reported conversation w/ Jessie Elenbaas & Alicia Likkel, emphasizing 1 Peter 3:15; looking ahead to "open mic" type event, where stories of sharing faith, Good News are told and shared; will include folks from sister congregations around Seattle; details TBD

Rooted & Linked; expanding Belltown Covenant; continued church planting and strengthening with local CRC Cluster (church office soon relocating to ground floor on Greenwood); March 15 Children In Worship event

Church Big versus Big Church; this perspective seems to be taking hold among members as we enjoy God doing big things with our relatively small hands

2. FINANCIAL UPDATE

Mike Elenbaas shared report based on information previously included with online Road Crew Agenda

Left time for Q&A; few comments/questions from visitor entertained, otherwise not much discussion; work of Stewardship Team approved, including moving ahead with Benevolence Fund as outlined in agenda.

ROAD CREW AGENDA - MARCH 4, 2012

Thanks Erin & Sean McCready for volunteering to bring lunch supplies!

1. Roots & Branches update: Evangelism Beyond Sunday and more...

2. Stewardship Team update; proposal re: "Acts 6:1-6" Benevolence Fund

Details re: Stewardship Team update:

Emmaus Road Church: Budget Handout Overview
First off, we apologize for not having this summary prepared further ahead of tomorrow’s Road Crew mtg. This handout gives a brief update of our church’s financial status. Please review this information; feel free to contact the Stewardship Team at the email addresses at the end of this handout with any questions you have. We’ll discuss much of this at Road Crew tomorrow, but we are of course available to answer and communicate about our financial situation anytime.

Cash Reserves

As the chart to the right shows, our net cash reserves have decreased slightly over the last five to six months. While we are still in a relatively healthy condition, meeting our budget, the Stewardship team has noticed slightly lower levels of giving. This highlights the need to continue to faithfully give, that we can together support our budgeted financial needs as a church and to continue to be able to support Church Beyond Sunday as part of Road Crew. Also, recall that some level of reserves is healthy for us in order to be able to manage the variability in month to month expenses that arise. As always, we will be monitoring our financial situation in the coming months and will update the church if giving and expenses start to move out of line.

Benevolence Fund
One of our action items from the last Road Crew meeting was to further develop a benevolence fund for Emmaus Road. This fund is a mechanism for us to respond to specific financial needs which arise among our members. Council met to discuss the fund and its principles and how to best implement this. The following principles were agreed to:

• We will establish a benevolence fund policy to guide council and stewardship team on benevolence fund decisions. The draft policy is to be attached as a separate document to our church blog.
• We will target 3% of our overall church budget for the benevolence fund each year. Note that this is one part of our overall 10% budgeted tithe as a church. See November 2011 Road Crew material for budget information.

What You Should Do, Road Crew

Please continue to pray for our continued financial sustainability as a church body. We are blessed with a diverse mix of families and individuals at our church who love God and have been called to this church to live life together and praise God together. We are blessed that we understand that money is a part of our lives as Christians; it requires discipline and humility. Thank you for your continued faithfulness, Road Crew, in giving to support our ministry together within our community.

Please send questions to Stewardship Team members at any of the email addresses below.
• Treasurer Ryan Engel at: rengel@gmail.com
• Elder Mike Elenbaas at: mchllnbs@yahoo.com
• Elder David Anema at: heyitsdavida@comcast.net