Spiritual Life Commission February 2, 2008
Present: Anne Roundy, Bob Edgarton (reflector), Joan Jordan Grant, and Joanne Painter
David Gaewski report: The best news is that OCWM ended $11,000 above last year, after a steady yearly decline of several previous years.
Rockcraft took another hit with $45,000 deficit. A piece of property was sold for $30,000, leaving still a $15, 000 hole. There is a concern around using all reserve funds.
Maine Ministerial Excellence Program ; Action Plan: We spent some time on reviewing the staffing and funding. The director needs to be a "deep" listener and skilled in spiritual direction as well as administration.
The funding for this program will need to come from grants. We are looking for a minimum of one million dollars for this grant. Holly Hancock met with the grant committee and answered all the immediate questions. Besides the committee, there will be other people on staff and from other educational bodies who will be asked to review the plans.
The need is for a full time staff position with a salary of $75,000. Another need is for stipends on a variety of levels for persons to teach these numerous ways and means of studying. There is a search for people throughout the state to call on for the pieces to come together and function.
Timetable: Hopefully this new program will be flying in early 2009 ( if not in late 2008).
Continuing education for pastors is vital. This program would care for this need.
Pastors in the northern part of the state are in need of community with supervised discussions and sessions pertaining to their work and lives in this isolation. We discussed the needs and possible kinds of solutions. Two-day retreats was suggested where pastors can speak of issues, have some supervised sharing, and some spiritual reflection. Spiritual formation is one key to such a need. This is a priority item for the committee.
We continued work on updating the Spiritual Directory, which shouldn't take more than a couple more months. There was discussion about making it known and available to all churches and groups who may wish to use it. The Spiritual Directory needs to be a "living document."
The Budget was presented for 2009 and compared with previous years and explained.
Dates: Church and Ministry retreat: April 11 and 12 – spent time on the new process of seminarians (location is to be announced)
Clergy spring retreat:
April 28 and 29 at Living Waters in
Seminary Days in
Respectfully submitted,
Joanne Painter