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PNC Board sometimes meets online, reduces travel across state

By Wendy Blight - PNC Moderator

Online meetings have become a great way for our Board of Directors to connect across the state and reduce the need for long trips to be together in person.  However, as many of you know, there are limitations to meeting online. 

Wendy Blight offers update from board.

In a Zoom meeting we can convey words, thoughts, prayers and expressions (if we’re on video), but so much of our communication is non-verbal that it can’t be relayed over the digital divide. 

If we’re not in the same room we miss important information that we can only understand when we’re sitting across the table from one another. 

The weekend of Nov. 9 to 10, the Board of Directors made the commitment to be together in Seattle over Friday evening and Saturday to brainstorm and discuss some important ideas.

We had a few goals in mind as we gathered: get to know each other better, have some fun together, talk about our purpose and direction as a Conference and identify some next steps that each Board member will take to move us into the future.

Friday evening was a time of fellowship and good conversation over pizza.  We played a theatre arts/improv game that made us laugh together and helped us get to each other better.  We wrote thank-you notes to our Conference committee chairs thanking them for their work. At the end of the night, we worshiped God together.

On Saturday we ate breakfast together and then dove into our work for the day.  Our intention was not to definitively write the purpose statement for the Conference but rather to imagine what a deeply-connected Conference would look like in a few years if we were to lean into that work.  Here are a few of the dreams expressed:

• The people in the Conference understand that “we are in this together”.  We give each other grace.  We know that we are in covenant with each other and that we are always safe when we interact with one another.  We embrace “covenantal conflict”.

• We understand and honor each other’s faith communities and our varied expressions of love and justice.

• We relate to the Conference as a set of relationships more than a structure.

• We see “church” as a community and not as a building.

• We know what’s going on in each other’s churches and communities.

• We show up for each other.

• The greater community knows and cares about what we’re saying and doing.  We are known in our communities as people who make the world a better place.

I’m curious to know what you would add to the list.  Feel free to write your thoughts to me at blightwk@hotmail.com.

It’s not easy to figure out what the first are tomove us toward the future we envision. 

Each board member identified two to five tasks that they could commit to this year.  Each of the tasks falls under one of the priorities that I shared last month: deepening relationships with colleagues, congregations, our communities, and improving communications throughout the Conference. 

We intend to make a difference in each of these areas before our Annual Meeting on April 27 at First Congregational Church of Bellevue. 

We’ll keep you posted!

For information, call 425-231-9313 or email blightwk@hotmail.com.    

 

Pacific Northwest United Church News - Copyright © November-December 2018

 

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