The Elders continue to make Care Calls with the help of many volunteers from the congregation. We all are enjoying the moments of sharing the love of RBTS with one another.
The Benevolent Fund stands ready to help any of our members who need the help during these trying times.
Elders have been discussing what will need to happen to Re-Open the church for services when circumstances will allow.
The Elders thank all who have helped with the On-Line worship services. We all agree they have been a blessing.
Respectfully submitted, Joel Rabe

While my work with the Call Committee has been put on hold for the moment, I am confident we will be ready to roll again as soon as we have a little more clarity around the timelines of Covid-19. In the meantime, I have continued my participation with the executive committee and the full council.

 

As we currently have a vacancy for the Christian Education committee chair, I have been the liaison with regards to Miss Rhonda’s work with the youth for Sunday School and for Vacation Bible School. Sadly, we have accepted that it will simply not be viable to hold our traditional Vacation Bible School we had originally scheduled for the end of June. The current priority is to plan for Covid-19 protocols as applicable to our Sunday School, so we are ready to roll safely when the time comes. Once we are clear on understanding the best way to keep our children and youth workers safe, we can start planning again with the goal of joyful, memorable Christian education events for our little ones and our youth.

 

One of the responsibilities of the Vice-President is to assist with filling vacancies for the Council. While we are not formally in that time frame yet, I am interested in speaking with anyone who has a heart for serving in one of the leadership roles of our church. I can share with you that it is rewarding and achievable. If you even just have questions, please reach out to me as I would love to visit with you.

 

The great thing about leadership is that you can be a leader every day without ever having been elected or appointed to a single thing. Certainly our Lord, Jesus Christ, displayed the greatest leadership ever recorded on this earth simply by being obedient and in intimate relationship with the Father. This is the journey I know we all aspire to, and I encourage each of you as you are leaders in your own lives. With our circumstances so far outside of our comfort zones, this is especially important right now. I pray for all of us as we walk together in the community of the Church.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Kim Glassman

I’m very happy to report that our leadership teams have made significant steps to mitigate the effects of government mandated social distancing protocols. Our Preschool-Kindergarten suspended in-person classes in late March, but have continued to provide full instruction and activities via online offerings. The PSK board chose to suspend all tuition payments for families since the end of March. With the loss of revenue, the leadership team immediately began preparation and applied for a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan as part of the Federal government’s CARES act. In early April we received approval and received approximately $197,200 from this program. Although initially offered as a low percentage rate loan, we anticipate these funds to be converted to a grant as we show evidence that the funds were utilized to maintain our staffing levels during the government mandated shutdown. We forecast being able to maintain a full, paid teaching staff at the PSK through June. Planning is now in work to determine the type of instruction and the staffing level for the upcoming summer sessions. Clearly many variables out of the leadership control will effect the final decisions, but rest assured that Director Lindsey Malloy and PSK board Chairman Dan Bitner will continue to provide outstanding guidance as we continue to navigate the ever changing situation with COVID-19.

 

We are anxiously anticipating a limited return to “normal” operations as government restrictions in San Diego county are reduced. Pastor Augie and the lExecutive Team, working with our Board of Elders have been busy in crafting a return to worship plan, to not only define conditions in which we will “green light” worship services at our sanctuary again, but also what new safety protocols we will implement during the services.

 

Once we are able to return to somewhat normal operations, the leadership team have a strategic set of priorities:

In March, our Call was not accepted, and we began to gather additional candidates to review and interview. We have a list of very well qualified candidates to review, but have suspended this activity until the Covid-19 protocols are eased. We will plan to begin regular Call Committee meetings once we open up some of the activities at our church building.

 

The Executive Team began development of an independent review process that will monitor and report on progress towards ministry goals. Our Council Vice President (Kim Glassman) will lead this activity. This will be implemented with the oncoming Associate Pastor to ensure our efforts remain on plan with the expansion of our ministry efforts that the second Pastor will support.

 

Our leadership team have been very effective during this past several months of challenges. However, these challenges are made much more difficult due to an obsolete church governance document. We are currently operating under a church council model that was popular several decades ago, but presents us with inefficiencies and blockers to progress in implementing innovative programs. One symptom of our outdated model is that our Senior Pastor Augie is spending an inordinate amount of his attention and working hours to operational issues, such as facilities updates, staff management, and multi-media production. The goal of our research and recommended governance update will be to assign these operational duties to lay team members, allowing Pastor Augie (and soon our new Associate Pastor) to concentrate most of their effort on worship, teaching, lay leader training, in-home and shut-in ministry care and specific ministry execution.

 

– Daryl Martis, Council President