Constitution Transition Plan

Tonight we're coming to the very last part. It's not actually part of the Constitution itself, but it's a proposed transition plan to get us from where we are now to the new Constitution. Sort of necessary logistics that need to take place to get between one document and the other. So just as a reminder, I know that Keith has been reminding people on Sundays, and we've talked about, it's been mentioned in the Evangel, But after tonight's teaching, we're going to have a two-hour Q&A on Sunday night from 6 to 8 p.m. The idea is that we're able to come back together and look at the entire document that we've talked through over this summer. The Constitution Committee is actually meeting tomorrow night to review the draft that we presented to you to see if there's anything that we want to change in that draft based on what we've heard from you, based on any further thoughts that we've had so that we could bring you an updated draft on Sunday, an opportunity to hear from you again, any questions that you have, any comments that you have on that version of the draft. And then our goal is next Wednesday to present a final text of the proposal based on all those moving parts and announce at that time that in two weeks from that date on September 26th, that we'd be having a special meeting to look at that proposal, discuss that proposal, and vote on that proposal. And so that's where we're on our way. If that proposal for adoption of the new Constitution passes with a two-thirds vote, I believe that's the number, two-thirds vote, on that evening, then we would proceed to move ahead with the transition plan. And when we vote on that proposed constitution on the 26th, you'll also be voting on the transition plan to implement it. So that's where you are. When we look at the transition plan tonight, it assumes that the constitution has already been approved and looks to how we would implement it. If that document is not approved on the 26th, then we'll still be under our current document and we'll proceed the first Sunday in October to take deacon nominations under our current constitution because it's that time of year. And so one way or the other, we'll continue from that point forward. All right, so tonight we're going to be looking at the transition plan. Everyone should have a copy and it's also up here at the top. The main thing to keep in mind here is that 90% of this is purely logistics to get us from point A to point B. There are a couple of things in here that are probably gonna elicit conversation because they're challenging and we understand that, but most of it is gonna be logistics. So again, this assumes that this will only take effect if we approve the draft constitution on September 26th, but the purpose of this is to provide this transition. The first part is the effective date of the new Constitution. The effective date of the newly approved Constitution shall be Sunday, January 6, 2013, or the first Sunday thereafter that at least three elders have been duly recognized. The current Constitution remains in effect until that date, except as noted below, All references below to the current constitution refer to the constitution in effect prior to that date. So essentially what we're saying is since our current constitution is designed around the calendar year and normally new terms for leaders would take place at the beginning of the new year, we're shooting for the beginning of the coming year for this new constitution to take effect. So that would be Sunday, January 6, 2013. We do have a clause in there since the proposed constitution would require that we have at least three elders. If during the transition, for whatever reason, there aren't three elders in place by that date, the old constitution would continue into effect until we reached a point where we had approved at least three elders, in which case that would become the effective date. I think the dates we have planned out in the transition are such that we shouldn't have a problem undergoing elder elections before that time, but we just wanted to provide for that. Any questions about the effective date? Because the rest of the way, it keeps referring to the effective date, and that's what it's talking about. When the new Constitution takes effect, most likely the first Sunday in January. Yes, and that's actually spelled out further on in the document. Okay, so the remainder is divided up into two sections. One is prior to the effective date, what we're going to do between the approval of the new constitution and this January effective date. And the second part, B, is what happens on that effective date. So prior to the effective date, the 2013 budget creation process shall proceed as prescribed under the current constitution during fall 2012. The idea there is for this year, no change in the budget process. because by the time this would be approved at the end of September, it's too late to start a new budget process under the new Constitution. So for this period of transition, we'll stick to the current process. Secondly, the nominating committee shall nominate Sunday school teachers for the December 2012-February 2013 quarter as prescribed under the current Constitution. This period between December and February crosses over the transition. the effective date. Under the new Constitution, this would be something the elders would do, but we're going to go ahead and cover that period under the current process because it will already be going. Everybody okay with the first two? Like I said, a lot of this is just sort of boring logistics. Number three, there shall be no nomination and election of deacons under the current Constitution during fall 2012. So, If we've approved the new constitution, there won't be any need to use the old process to select deacons for the coming year because we're going to be moving to the new process that has elders and deacons. And that's where number four comes into play. The main idea here is during this transition period, we want to proceed to get elders recommended, nominated, and elected so that they can come along side and start the transition process so they're ready to go and hit the ground running on the effective date in January. So number four says, the initial recommendation, nomination, and approval of elders shall proceed during fall 2012 following the process prescribed in the new Constitution. Following the solicitation and receipt of recommendations from the congregation, the pastor is the only currently recognized elder shall serve as the prescribed examiner and nominator of candidates who shall then be voted on by the church. This is the one area that I expect that there's going to be discussion on. Under the new constitution, the elders, just as the deacons are under our current constitution, the elders of the new constitution are given the role to examine and present candidates for leadership. So now when we have If we were to proceed under the current Constitution, do deacon nominations first week in October, those nominations would then go to the deacons. The deacons and pastors would look at these candidates, examine the candidates, talk to them, and then present candidates. In the same way, the new Constitution provides that the elders will do this going forward. Well, right now we only have one elder, and that's Keith. And so the transition plan is written. would give that role to Keith. We talked quite a bit about this on the committee, about how this might best work. It's a bit of a bootstrapping problem because we as a committee are convinced that scripture points to a plurality of leadership. That's why we want a plurality of elders. And so it's in an odd spot to have a single elder have this key role as part of this initial process. But it is a bootstrapping problem because there's really no good way around it. There are other options that we looked at are say, well, make it the pastor and the deacons. As we've talked about before, there's some expectation that some of the deacons are likely to be those nominated and be the candidates that will be looked at. All of the current deacons are on the Constitution Committee and were part of this discussion. And after we talked about it for quite a long time, we were all agreed that this approach of having Keith act as elder in this situation and be the one who's involved in taking those recommendations and examining the candidates and nominating those to be on the ballot was the best case. We prefer that we already had plurality of elders. The next time we do this, we'll have a plurality of elders and they'll be involved in that discussion. Are there any questions about that? Andrew. What role would Sam have to play, assuming he gets here in time? What role would Sam have to play in this, assuming that he would come in time for this? Considering that Sam isn't likely to be here until at least October, we thought that he wouldn't have an opportunity to get to know us well enough to be a good participant in that. And so we didn't think, we thought that that would just be adding an additional person who really didn't know the people involved and that wouldn't be appropriate as part of the examination. You'll see that Sam does get mentioned later in the document, however. it still would be our responsibility ultimately to elect those nominees, right? Right. So the first thing to keep in mind is that the congregation is going to be doing the recommendation. That's the first step. And then the last step is the congregation is involved to approve the candidates and only those candidates receiving a three-force affirmation from the congregation would then be considered elected. So we actually have effectively a plurality, though it's not as we ultimately want it to be, with the elders doing that. Yeah, it's not just going to be Keith picking people. The congregation is the beginning of the process and the end of the process. All right, now understand that this is largely in chronological order. That's intentional to see how we would step through this transition. So assuming that as the last step of number four, that the candidates are voted on by the church, in number five, upon the church's approval of one or more non-staff elders. So the process is complete. There's been a recommendation, a nomination, and then the church votes. And remember, under the new Constitution, there's a full month between the announcement of the nominations and the vote. So that'll have to take place. There'll be an opportunity to talk about it. Unlike currently, where there's a middle of worship service, votes with no discussion, the vote will be at a called meeting. There'll be an opportunity for discussion and then a vote. After all that has been completed, upon the approval of one or more non-staff elders through that process, then things start moving. So to go to Paul's point earlier on the second side, those approved shall be recognized as elders as described in the new constitution. So those who are duly elected will be recognized as elders under the new constitution. Pastor Keith Goad shall be recognized as preaching elder as described in the new constitution and his job description shall change to reflect that position. Associate Pastor Sam Crosby shall be recognized as a staff elder as described in the new constitution and his job description shall change to reflect that position. So anyone who's just been elected through the process described plus Keith and Sam at that point would be recognized as elders under the new constitution. At that same time, the terms of all deacons elected under the current constitution shall end." So it's a little bit early of ending their period of service, so this new group can make preparations. And then finally there, the elder shall assume the authority and responsibilities of deacons under the current constitution until the effective date. So basically during this period where the old constitution is still in effect, These new leaders will fulfill the role of our previous leaders, and then at the effective date, they'll switch over and they'll have the role under the new Constitution. This is not a disagreement, it's just a question that maybe we've covered it before. What's the mechanism for Sam Crosby's being an elder? Is it just that we automatically, does he automatically become a staff elder or he doesn't go through the process? At least it's not spelled out that he goes through the process. Right. He underwent, when we called him as associate pastor, He underwent a very similar process to what we will do when we hire staff elders in the future. And in giving him pastor in his title, the idea was that he would be a pastoral. Right now in our current constitution, we have ministry staff and then other kinds of employees. And so people who have pastoral responsibilities are in a different category and undergo a different process. And Sam went through that process to be a ministry leader, have a pastoral title, and we would consider that to be equivalent to a staff elder under the new constitution. If there are 10 people recommended as elder, will Keith then recommend one or two or 10 for a vote? So is he going to whittle down what is submitted as recommendations and then present who he thinks after his conversations with them, I propose? That's what we would expect. And that's similar to what happens now. There are some people under our current process who get 20, 25 nominations. Other people get one nomination. And those people are usually not treated equivalently. On Saturday when we come, excuse me, Sunday when we come back to review everything together, we'll update the copy of the transition plan you got. The numbering got scrambled during the printing process. So we did originally have the items under five, which are listed as 1 through 5. On the back is A through F. We'll get that back so the sequence is a little bit clearer. And we also need to make sure the final item about deacons, which we haven't talked about yet, also gets numbered. Sorry for any confusion with the double numbering system. I like Steve's question. I was just wondering if maybe Keith could respond to it because I was hoping there'd be a little more transparency about exactly how he's going to whittle those people down. I understand the part you talked about based on how many nominations they get, but I was also going to ask, go ahead. I think that's a good question, but why don't we go through the process and then when we're done and see what the whole process looks like, we can have Keith talk about how he's going to approach that. Because we had some conversations about that in the committee meeting as well. So what is it going to look like? What can you commit to doing, et cetera? You use the term elder, staff elder, preaching elder. I don't know if there are any other labels of elder, but do all of those count in the minimum of three? Yes. The question was, do all the different kinds of elders count in the total of three? And the answer is yes. So that Keith is one, Sam is one, and then one or more additional elders are elected as part of the recommendation, nomination, and approval process. And so once you have at least one added to the first two, then you have three. We pray that it will be many more than, It'll be more than three when the process is complete. All right, so what that does is set up, puts elders in place. And again, this doesn't happen on September 26th. This is something that will be a process where there'd be a solicitation of recommendations, an examination process. nomination followed by at least a month before we then discuss and vote on those candidates as a church, then at that point we have elders who are in authority under the current Constitution. At that point, the next item is the initial recommendation, nomination and approval of deacons shall proceed following the process prescribed in the new Constitution. Following the solicitation and receipt of recommendations from the congregation, the elder shall serve as prescribed examiners and nominators of candidates who shall then be voted on by the church. So the same thing happens again, only this time for deacons. And this time we do have a plurality of leaders in place who can then act as examiners and nominators, just as I said, we have in the current process for the deacon candidates. And again, under the new constitution, there'll be at least a month between the nomination and the vote, and then there'll be a discussion and vote at the end of that month before those folks are approved. So that potentially all could happen before the effective date at the beginning of January. We're also cognizant of the fact, though, that it's a relatively tight time schedule when you have two mandatory one-month periods of waiting and praying and thinking about what's gonna go on. So it's almost assuming that there's not a universal vote against the candidates. It's pretty likely that we'll have elders in place if everything proceeds as planned. It's possible but not guaranteed that the deacons would be in place as of the beginning of January. So what happens on the effective date? We have to, again, see how duties are going to transition from the current process to the new process. Under the new Constitution, there's only one kind of membership. There's membership. Under our current Constitution, we have a membership concern list, which has a handful of people on it. We have a non-resident members list, which has some people on it. And we have an associate members list, which is currently empty. And so item number one under B is the membership concern list shall be vacated at the first members meeting following the effective date. The elder shall recommend that any members on the non-resident members list under the current constitution either be moved to the members list or be removed from membership as appropriate. So essentially take the list that we have now and collapse them down into the one list that we'll have going forward. Any questions about that? Two, the terms of all trustees elected under the current constitution shall expire at the first members meeting following the effective date at which the elders shall present candidates for the new one-year term trustees. Under the current constitution, we have rotating trustees who are elected for three-year terms. They overlap each other. Under the new Constitution, the proposal is to have one-year terms and to have them be concurrent. And so this would move the current trustees out of office and provide for nomination and election of new trustees under the current Constitution. These may even be some of the same names who are currently trustees but, He just gets them into their right terms of service and to be elected under our new document of order. B3, the terms of the clerk and the treasurer elected under the current constitution shall expire at the first members meeting following the approval of deacons under the new constitution at which the deacons shall present candidates for 2013. So here there's a slightly different twist. Since the trustees are nominated by the elders, we're almost certain that those will be able to go forth at the January members meeting. But the clerk and treasurer positions are nominated by deacons under the new constitution. So we need the current clerk and treasurer to continue until we have deacons in place. And then at the next meeting after that, we can have nominated and elected clerk and treasurer. Again, boring logistical details to make sure that we have a clerk and treasurer at all times, which is important. Paul? Yeah, the trustees is really not a problem, because the trustees rarely have to act. We can wait the 15, 20 minutes in between. I think the intent here, and I can make the language match the intent if it's not in there already, on the clerk and the treasurer, that they can actually until their replacement at that first meeting after deacons are nominated, so that they can work the first 10, 15 minutes of the conference Candidates are replaced. I will add language about until replaced. That's a good point. Is there another hand? It'll be Cheryl. It's OK. It takes a two-thirds vote for it not to be sheriff. B4, the terms of all others elected to annual positions, for example, committee memberships and coordinators under the current constitution shall expire at the first members meeting following the effective date. Essentially normally that's when the previous year's folks would roll over anyway and it just says their terms extend. Until then, as we've talked about before, there won't be a lot of standing committees the way there were under the previous system, if we adopt the new system. At that point, the elders and deacons could nominate people to be in committees, but there's not a requirement for that. And so it just closes out cleanly the previous groups of people. And then finally on the list, this has been sort of a status list. You know, if you're a member of the old system, how are you going to be a member of the new system? If you were serving this way under the old system, how are you going to serve under the new system? One remaining status, several years ago, Ross Kirby was selected and voted on by the congregation as a Deacon Emeritus. That position doesn't exist anymore under our current constitution, but we thought it would be proper for Ross to continue to have that status as Deacon Emeritus. So we included that in there. Any other questions on the process, on the logistics? Dorian? In the, I presume you're going to do it, but in the members, the consolidation to one list of the members lists, does that just happen just like, just Did they just do that without contacting the people? Or is there some sort of attempt made to contact those people who are on non-resident lists? The non-resident list right now is composed of people who are either homebound in town or who are no longer living in the area. And so those two categories of people might be treated differently. Ultimately, the individual, what's going to happen with each individual would be a recommendation. by the elders under this transition plan, and it would be voted as, with all membership decisions under the new constitution, would be voted on by the congregation. And so my guess is you might treat somebody who is here and unable to attend because of health issues differently than you might treat someone who really hasn't been here in three years, they're somewhere else, they need to find a new church wherever they've moved, and those are likely to, I'm just speculating here, likely to lead to different recommendations. but the church would have the opportunity to discuss those recommendations and then vote on them to make sure that they were appropriate. Any other questions on the process? A lot of it sounds bureaucratic, but as Paul's comments pointed out, you have to be bureaucratic to sort of catch everything. It's sort of hard to do. We kept adding things that we'd previously forgotten and hopefully we didn't forget anything in the latest version. I know that there were one or more additional questions for Keith about his role in the elder nomination process. Steve, can you repeat the question? How am I going to work through the recommendations to get to the point of nomination? That's a very good question. Really, there's four things I'll be looking for. As I look at the recommendations, as I'm already praying through and thinking about who these men might be, there's four basic rules I'm trying to follow. The elders need to be recognized by the congregation. It would be foolish to nominate someone who was not recommended at all. Whoever is nominated from me would have to be recognized at some level by the congregation. Now, that said, I want to throw out the possibility that the most recognized person may not get nominated. The person that the whole church sees as an elder may not get nominated, and that may be because of a spiritual reason, It could be because of family reasons. I'm going to be looking at the spiritual qualifications. That actually gets to the second thing. But the first group of elders is going to be a demanding job. Defining the culture of the elders, trying to find deacons, working through the membership concern list. There's a lot of things this first group of elders has to do. And so I'm going to be considering the family situation a lot for that first group of elders. in terms of what kind of things we're doing. So I say that in the sense that the recommendations are going to be a clear leader as to who would be nominated, but it's not the absolute rule. Any questions on that? So recognize. They need to be recognized by the congregation. Any questions on that? Well, I haven't gotten there yet. Recognize. That's number one. Yeah. The second one is qualified. So, once I get the recommendations, I'll start working through from the top to the bottom. You know, however many I want to think through. If there's 20 people, we'll get 20 recommendations and, well, that'll take a lot of time. But, I'll walk through the spiritual qualifications. Something that I have done in the past and that I've already actually issued it out to the group of us that meet on some Wednesday, third Wednesday nights as a group for Deacon Discipleship. It's a long, tedious questionnaire that walks through the qualifications of First Timothy and Titus. So it asks very practical, hard questions about those qualifications. And you can lie on it, but You know, they're very clear, they're very hard and precise. So the first thing I'll do is get them to fill that out and then walk through that, see if there's any, you know, glaring red flags that'll actually make the list a little easier. So the first thing I'm looking for is qualified. And let me say, this is what makes, that qualified step is what makes this position very difficult for me to be alone. I don't do membership interviews alone. So, much less, I don't want to do an elder interview alone. I don't think of, you can tell me if I'm wrong, anybody I've interviewed, I've ever did it alone. Yeah, so I take seriously the need for other people's input and insight into these kind of spiritual questions. And so, I think this is very weighty. I don't want to do it alone. We wrestled with how we could possibly make that otherwise. but there wasn't another solution on the table that everyone, or the majority, was happy with. So, recognized, qualified. Complementary would be the third step. We don't want three men who are exactly the same. We want to look at men who are gifted in a complementary way. The same way we looked at Sam, we wanted someone who was going to be complimentary, not the same gifts, skill sets, and so forth. I've already been thinking about this at some level. We actually had done this last, when you were a deacon, and then our deacon's retreat this pastime, we actually kind of created a way of thinking through the different kinds of leadership that Scripture prescribes. And, well, it's pretty simple. So, as we went back, if you go back with me to our study in Acts and 1 Peter 5, Paul tells elders to oversee and to pastor. So, you've got overseeing, you've got caring, counseling. Well, you also have teaching. So, I'm already thinking through how do I look for those particular characteristics? Because I don't want three overseers. You don't want three overseers. You don't want three caregivers because they'll never be over, you know, they're not going to have the right oversight. And you don't want three teachers. So I'm going to be looking for the complementary gifts. That's at least how I'm thinking about the way to make sure that we have at least three men. And I'm already throwing out that number because I am hoping for three. I'm hoping to nominate three layholders. That's the goal. I don't know what God's going to give us from your recommendations and haven't gone through the process with anyone yet. But, yeah, that's what I'm hoping. I know some people are saying, all right, well, if you have two staff elders and the middle one's three, does that mean you're going to have, you know, staff heavy? The goal is not to be staff heavy in the elder board. Any questions on recognize, qualified, or complimentary? Does a three make sense? I'm trying to make sure those are as scriptural as possible. as the body of elders grows, as the congregation grows, maybe also you need more and more people with some overlapping, some of those gifts overlapping. So you're just basically saying, aren't you, that you want three different people to start with, but what if God provides a whole lot more that fit the bill? That's the minimum. I don't know if we're nominating everyone that I think should be nominated for the year, because that first group is going to define the culture, so it's also a culture-defining group for those meetings in terms of the spiritual nature, prayerfulness, and so forth. So, yeah, I haven't gotten into the who's yet, so I don't know. But three is just what I'm looking for, minimum. If we don't get that, God will be... We're going to have deacons, Lord willing, soon. So yeah. I was going to say, we have a lot of booze in this town anyway. No. No, no, no. Shh. I was just going to add that as somebody who's been working through the details of the constitutional document, we have to remember too that those selected through this first go-round have three-year terms. And if everybody who could possibly be an elder was brought in at one time, then they'd all leave at one time too. I would, not to put words in his mouth, but we've had the conversation before. The idea is you want men that you assume would be able to come on the next year and the next year after. And obviously you're wanting to continually train and raise up and call out, but you need to provide for some rolling terms so that you're not having completely new bodies every three years, but you have folks who are working alongside each other, and one or two people roll off, and another, but you have a continuous series of service. One other part of that is I'm the only one nominating at this point, and so I want to go for the most obvious. And so for those folks who may have some questions, or if there's anything they want to think through more, I would want some other wisdom with me to make some nominations, I'm assuming. So that would be why we'd want to start out smaller as well. You could have just spoken to Mark. I don't want to get that close. I might get hit. I just wanted to say that I think there's tremendous wisdom in only having three to start with because of a lot of reasons. But one of them is, as you've implied, you want to get core values set up, established, that you believe the Bible is false. And the more people that you have around, the more likelihood there might be some quibbling and difficulties in that. But once you set it up established correctly, then you can kind of use that as a yardstick when you bring others in in the year after that. That really helps tremendously. And another principle that I learned a long time ago is compatibility. is often more important than ability. So if you have six or seven or eight folks around, but one of us, like myself, might be difficult to get along with or whatever, no matter how so-called spiritual or able or whatever that person is, it can cause a lot of trouble, dissension. That's no extra charge, that's just for down the road. I appreciate that. That compatibility is more important than ability, or at least equally so. Very good. Thank you. Thank you for those words of wisdom. And while I'm speaking, then I'll be quiet. I'm getting closer, Don. When you get around to having deacons, the most important thing in the world that you can do is to periodically have meetings with both deacons and elders to bring them into a group together so you're all one, even though you're going in different directions with a lot of the functions that you have. But it's so easy for the deacons to be felt like they've been left out in different ways, and you've got to work extra hard to make sure that that doesn't occur, that there's no separation in any way, shape, or form between the elders and deacons after you get those established. Thank you. Thank you. I think you're speaking from some experience there. Anything else? Recognized, qualified, complimentary? The last one is similar to what you just said about the compatibility, unified. That was the last. I may switch those now. I'll take out unified and added compatibility. I want to make sure that groups can be unified. So that's the tricky one, because once we get down to a number, then I'll have to start asking them about one another to make sure they all, we don't want two of the three to think one is not qualified. That would not be healthy or helpful. So at some level, there's going to be awkward conversations about the others. And so, and that's how it's going to be, you know, we want to make sure they're compatible, that they actually see themselves as compatible, but also unified. They would feel like they could work as a team. So, the four words now, recognize, qualified, complimentary, and unified. That's the best I've thrown a think through to this point. But again, the real hard one is thinking through the qualified, because that's not just the spiritual qualification, it's the leading and teaching qualification. And then just trying to think through, something that burdens me greatly at this church is how much you're serving. How much time commitment there is, and how much time you actually have. Thank you all for your great willingness to serve. This church breaks the typical 2080 rule, and I'm very thankful for you all. It's a very active, committed body. And there's a lot of things going on, so I want to make sure that these men, their families are not going to be hindered. It's not going to be a burden. It'll be a blessing to their families. Other questions about the process? That was a good question. or anything else. Steve? At this point, is it finalized that you're going to be the sole person that works through these nominations or is that still up for debate slash vote? That's what you'd be voting on for this transition plan. This can be amended. It's going to be up for vote just like anything else. discreetly as possible, what kind of conversation went on in putting this together regarding that point? We talked about it when we first wrote the Constitution, decided to set the transition plan aside until we were almost done teaching through it because it was controversial, it was difficult. We just met two weeks ago. I always say that it's been tense. The key issue is the only other folks that one could add would be the deacons at this point. And that's somewhat presumptuous and maybe somewhat limiting in terms of presumptuous that they are elders, you know, who are nominating elders. And it's limiting in that they would not then be able to be nominated as elders. Yeah, I understand that difficulty. Were there any other provisions recommended by anyone else in that meeting for how to do this? I mean, given Brian's point that not everybody should be an elder who can be an elder, you think you could have a provisional board of people that are agreed upon by the church, and if they serve on that board, they therefore can't be initially elders at this point. But also given the point that was just made about how important it is to set the culture, you're being given a huge amount of power by yourself to then choose those few people who are going to set that culture. And I just wonder how smart that is to do. The awkward conversations of Unified, that's where those will come in. That's where I'm actually going to be trying to get wisdom from the other men that are already kind of gotten to the point of that fourth step. I mean, that is open for amendment and ideas. We did not find a good solution. Because the other option is to go ahead and say, well, this is the guy who's going to be obvious than Elder, so we'll go ahead and vote him in, and then there's two. that doesn't really work either. It'd be great to have some time for Sam to be here, so we have at least two people, but we don't think he'll be ready soon, in terms of knowing the body. Will you have somebody that you're talking to at council during this period, or are you thinking about someone who's a non-accountable? Well, I'll be talking to outside council, or someone who is not a candidate about it. If something gets particularly... Again, I'm looking for a smaller number out of what I'm going to be assuming is a larger number of recommendations. So looking at the most obvious, I'm hoping it doesn't get real difficult, given how God has gifted and blessed this body. I'm not against talking to other folks outside, The issue is they have to know you. That's the real hard part. I don't know how wise it would be to talk about these spiritual... Those are the real hard ones. I don't know how wise it would be to open those things up. I'm not against asking for help in that way. I just want to make sure I'm protecting the people I'm talking about the most. That's why I want to wait until the very last step when I'm actually talking to the other men who would be nominated. And that would be the men that I would ask those difficult things in a more trusted way. So the other counsel will be in that step. I'd be happy to actually let them interview one another in the same way, once we got to that step before the nomination. There's a way to do it, it's just a matter of how We want to do this for the glory of God, but I also want to make sure I'm protecting some reputations. Jennifer? They will be voted on, though, finally by the church, so it will still go to the congregation. Yeah, and I'm, after, Lord willing, if this is voted in, I'll be teaching through the qualifications and hoping to give you good questions to ask those who would be nominated so that you can go and interview them yourself. Not knowing who those would be at that time, but actually just saying, here are the qualifications of the scripture, here's questions you can ask them. I hope that you would actually go out of your way and get to know them. I hope you're not just wanting to come in and check off a piece of paper. I mean, these are men who are going to be leading you spiritually. Yeah, I hope we get to know them. So, it's not just me examining at that level. Is there another question? So, with Sam, when we went through the examination process, there was time to ask questions? Is there something... I didn't hear the first part of your question. I just didn't understand it. Yeah. Is there going to be a time for the congregation to ask questions and examine, like we do with the staff elders? Publicly? So, with you, when you... I mean, Sam Crosby. Yeah. There was a time for asking questions? Okay. Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. We don't know what that process will look like. We did that with deacons last time at the church retreat. That would probably be a good idea. We actually haven't gotten that far on the road as to what it would look like. Public Q&A is great. The private Q&A is better. There are questions that we can ask. There will be interviews. There will be presentations as to why this person would be nominated. But really the You all know one another. So that kind of public, I mean, I don't think I need to know somebody's favorite shade of blue, Noah Davis. That was one of the questions Sam Crosby got. You know, we all know each other more than that. So I think more of the Q&A from you all will be private questions. But I'm not opposed to a public Q&A. I mean, that was very helpful whenever Ben and Ron were nominated in the church recruit. We did that. It was hopeful. Will the names be presented as a slate or individually? Individually. Ron, you can't ask questions. You know all the answers. Just a reminder about what we've talked about in previous weeks in terms of elder nomination in election. Remember what this says, we're going to do it the way it is in the new constitution. Really the only change is we have only one elder rather than multiple elders doing the nominating. But under the process in the new constitution, They're nominated as individuals and so you can vote for them all, you can vote for none of them, you can vote for some, not vote for others. They're given, the nominations are placed a month ahead of a meeting and at that meeting you'll have an opportunity to discuss the candidates before they're voted on and the Constitution explicitly encourages folks who have problems with the nominations. to go to that person and talk to him and say, you know, man, I've got issues. I don't really, I know something that maybe keeps fitting and you shouldn't be an elder and to have that process. And so it's something that each of you should take very seriously too, that it's on you to judge these candidates. This is a nomination, but ultimately you're the one saying yes or no, and they have to pass your test. And if there are things that need to be addressed with him, you go and address it with him. And if that doesn't work and you still feel that you need to continue that line, you know, it says you should go to the elders. In this case, that would be Keith and say, hey, there's this issue and I've tried to work it out with this person, but here it is. So, again, that it's not just a single direction of communication, but it's back and forth between you and the candidate, and if need be, communication to Keith about any issues that he might need to know about. Steve, to answer your question also earlier, is there other options? Every other trip we've seen go through this transition. This was the only option we saw. Is that the only option I remember seeing? All right. No. Just one last word as the person who is leading the presentation tonight, which is to strongly encourage you to come on Sunday night. I know I've mentioned it two or three times already, but that'll be the opportunity. Two more hours. Questions about anything in the Constitution? Like I said, the committee's meeting tomorrow night to make any changes based on what we've already heard where we think a change might be appropriate. The plan is to bring that on Sunday night so people can see where the feedback has made a difference. A chance to ask about anything, to hear your feedback about anything in the Constitution and the transition plan. That's at least two hours. If people are bored after an hour, We'll go home. If they still have questions at two hours, next Wednesday night we'll have another time of Q&A and add to that so that everyone has a chance to get some input in. But do be there. If you haven't had a chance to attend some of the sessions throughout the summer, that's a place you can come. We'll make sure that there are plenty of copies of the entire document. If you haven't had a chance to ask a question before, you can ask it. You can hear what other people are saying. either for or against a particular item that may be of issue for you. And so hopefully that'll be a good chance of some discussion.