Ever wondered what happens at a General Council meeting? Now, every time there is a meeting we plan on taking you “inside” the discussions with a brief summary afterward. Here it is:

Our meetings in Janesville were productive. Joining the five elected members, Executive Director, and Financial Officer, for part of the meetings was George Cruzan, President of the Memorial Fund Trustees. During this set of meetings, we reviewed first drafts of the 2015 Denominational Budget. We also spoke with all of our budget preparers about evaluations of programs in their respective ministries.

Part of our meeting also included our annual evaluation of our Executive Director, Rob Appel. Thanks to everyone who provided feedback in regards to this process. We are pleased to have Rob working with us and coordinating with our board/agency and allied society leaders to engage in the “mission” of SDBs.

Here are the highlights from our February 2014 meeting:  

-General Council representatives met with representatives from the Board of Christian Education in January to begin discussions related to reorganization under the General Conference and representatives of the Historical Society in February to answer questions concerning the possibility of merger with the General Conference.

-Both the Church Planting and Church Revitalization Task Forces have begun meeting and working toward helping SDBs with new and healthy churches.

-The General Council continued working on our Interim Transition Strategy.  This includes the hiring of an Interim Editor for the Sabbath Recorder on a contract basis for up to 15 months starting in May 2014.  Volunteers will be used to help fill other areas of ministry during the transition. General Council will also begin a long term a long term planning process during our May meeting.

-If any group would like to meet “virtually” by video conferencing, they may contact the Executive Director to make arrangements to do this.

-The next General Council meeting will be May 16-18, 2014 in Riverside, CA with a remote video conferencing call planned for late March if needed.

If your church would like to host the General Council for a meeting, please feel free to send an invitation to our Executive Director. We are privileged to have the opporunity serve our General Conference and its members in this way.