Brindabella Baptist Church Leadership Web site

Synopsis

In short the election for the new leadership structure has been put back by three weeks due to a lack of nominations for the Ministry Leadership positions. The current PLT was unwilling to place the new Eldership into an unworkable situation from day one.  The PLT will be using a process similar to that used to select the Transition Team to increase the number of nominations for the Ministry Leadership positions prior to the close of nominations on 31 Oct 08. The new leadership vote is scheduled for Sunday 16 Nov 08.

Click here for on Line "Likely Candidate Form"

The Problem

The full story, at the PLT meeting 16 Oct 08 we discussed the leadership nominations for the upcoming leadership restructure. While the number of nominations for the four Elder positions was very encouraging we had grave concerns regarding the total of only two nominations for all five Ministry Management positions open. Our concerns, should the leadership restructure proceed as planned, centred around placing the new Eldership into a similar position that we have struggled under over the last year. Our hope was that the new team would start with solid leadership in each ministry leadership area and that strong teams could quickly form around the ministry leaders to progress the ongoing weekly functioning of the church. With limited leaders in the ministry areas the Elders would inevitable be drawn away from the governance functions and back into management activities. This is counter to the recommendations of the transition teams desire to clearly separate the governance and management functions.

Further, we consider that of the six positions within the management area of leadership, the three critically required for the most basic operation of the church are, Operations Manager, Worship and Creative Arts, and Treasurer. With no nominations at all for any of these positions we believed the new Elders would find themselves in immediate difficulty and be struggling right from the start. Given all the effort and time put into seeking God’s plan for His church by so many over the last year or so, it seemed wrong to set it up to for failure right from the start. Having come this far we need to give the new structure and those that will serve within it the best possible starting position.

The Solution

To achieve this we decided to delay the vote for the constitution and new leaders by 3 weeks, until Sunday 16Nov 08. This gives us two more weeks to seek further nominations. All current nominations will stand and we will accept new nominations for all positions, ministry and eldership, up until midnight 31 Oct 08. To proactively address the lack of nominations in the Ministry positions overall, and the key positions specifically, we have decided to conduct a process similar to that used when we formed the transition team. We want everybody (everybody!) to propose three names of people in the church that they believe are gifted appropriately for each of these position. Yes that is 15 names from each of you. Attached is the “Likely Candidate Form” that we will be using on 26 Oct 08 you can email that in before the 26^th if you will not be at church that day. The PLT will collect these names on Sunday 19 Oct 08 during the service. We all have from now until then to pray and think through who has the necesary giftings in these five positions. Get the directory and look through it. PLT have an expectation that people will come to the service prepared with these names prayerfully considered.  If you are not going to be at the service you can forward your list to Aidan Luke prior to Sunday 26 Oct 08.  It is very important that everybody contributes.

Having collected these names on 26 Oct 08, the PLT will tally the names on each list and approach all those who are seen by the church body to be gifted to serve. If those people then accept, a formal nomination form will be signed off. The approaches will be made early in the week giving people a couple of days to consider their position before nominations close on the Friday night. In this way we hope to obtain a greater and more deliberate number of nominations for each ministry leadership position.

What we need from YOU

We believe that God has people here in His church, that He has gifted and guided, to fill the positions within the new structure. We ask you to pray with us that those people will  be identified through this revised process and delay to hear that calling.  We need a strong management group that will be able to lead us on His plan for this church.   The alternative to ignoring this process and the resultant call is a church whose continued future is uncertain and tenuous.We also discussed that these Ministry Leaders are not being asked to do it alone. We are all in this and we need to form a team around those leaders and work together with them.

Our concern is that many people who had been approached for nomination had declined from being nominated because they saw this as far too big a job to take on.  And it would be if you had to do it alone. But that is not the idea or culture of this church. We have to be in this together and support those who lead. To this end, while we are collecting names of potential nominee’s we also want you to gain an indication as to which of the Ministry area you will be directly supporting. When we ask people to be nominated we can also supply an indication of who is willing to support them in that ministry area. Hopefully it won’t seem such a overwhelming task when they know they are not alone.

In summary the new plan: