Wednesday, March 11, 2015

2:00 pm MDT/3 pm CDT/1:00 pm PDT/4:00 pm EDT

Present: Gary, Tom, Melanie, Bohdan, Ed

Check In & Prayer  All who were on the call checked in and Melanie opened with a prayer.

 Approval of Minutes from Annual Meeting and the January meeting were received.

Treasurer’s report was received. Ed just sent Brian $800 from the December appeal. At the current rate, we will exhaust our funds before the end of the year.

Coordinator’s report Ed sent an e-news and newsletter with a tear off donation form at the bottom last week. We usually receive some donations when we sent one out. Bohdan will combine an article he has written with one Marda wrote about the retreat and send it to Ed for the next issue. We have two new members. Thursday meetings are going well. The schedule for the chairpersons and reminders which Melanie sends out have made a difference.

The new Lutherans Alive Again/Lutheran Recovery Network is going well. Ed met with his mentor/benefactor a week ago. This man brought the associate pastor from his church who is also a pastor in recovery. He is also excited and interested in this ministry. Ed’s frustration is that he is not able to give as much time to it as he’d like. He is grateful for his intern, who has been working on the speaker series though Ed’s church. There were a hundred people at their last event. The next one is scheduled for next week. People have been positive about the 11^th step worship/meeting, but it needs to become weekly to really get established.

Ed touched on his concern about the finances again. He requests all of the board members to set up automatic monthly gifts to the Fellowship, using resources like Simply Giving or through your bank.  Ed and Melanie do this. Even a small amount makes a difference.

Ed filed the 2014 taxes. There was a discussion of Gary’s role with the state of Illinois regarding non-profit paperwork. The state will send him the paperwork when it is needed.

Gary shared an email which he received from a LCMS lay woman in recovery who found our website. She was excited about what she saw and wants information about the Fellowship for Lutheran Laity in recovery. Gary will forward the email to Ed.

                       

Old Business:

Ideas for web page: Melanie brought up the idea of making our site more dynamic and interesting so that people would have reasons to return rather than just looking at it once. She thought about linking to a daily recovery devotional, but has not been able to implement that. Another idea was to post a video with some of the material from the preamble to our recovery meetings. Our web developer agreed to work on it but hasn’t gotten to it yet. She and her husband have been dealing with health issues recently.

One of Ed’s thoughts is to find money to put together a dynamic website for the new group with someone who can stay on top of it and keep it up to date. Our site is static and is updated when we get around to it. Melanie will add a new page with material that Ed sent about the 11^Th step meeting he has started. She was waiting for him to have experience with the group and format, and since it is going well she will do it sometime soon.

 

New Business

 E-newsletter and quarterly newsletter article from the cruise were discussed above.

Independent Lutheran Organization: Melanie sent an email to Ed and Bohdan with an article from her Synod’s newsletter. This article from the newly renamed Lutheran Association of Christian Educators explained who they are, who they serve, thanked the Synod for a small donation to their organization and asked readers to consider donating to them also. Perhaps we could send such a letter describing the FRLC to the Synods also. If each of the 65 Synods donated $100 it would be significant. Board members thought this was a good idea.  Melanie will think about it and write a draft letter for the board when she is able to do so, which may not be by the next board meeting.

Following up on a comment at the Annual Meeting, Melanie attempted to look up websites for organizations for clergy in recovery from other denominations. It has been a long time since we have been in touch with them. A Presbyterian clergy group came up on Google but the link didn’t work. The Episcopal clergy fellowship, the  Recovered Alcoholic Clergy Association (RACA) also had a non-working link. She did discover an Episcopal Recovery Ministry site for laity, which she sent to Ed and Bohdan as an idea to work for with our lay fellowship. You may view that website at: http://www.episcopalrecovery.org/

Next retreat: it has been proposed that we hold it in conjunction with the new lay fellowship, possibly in Minnesota. Please think about it. We will discuss it next month.

 

Next meeting: April 8, 2015 2:00 pm MDT/2 pm CDT/1:00 pm PDT/3:00 pm EDT 12:00 pm