The general sentiment seems to be that with the Rodeo complete, the church office has entered reclusion. In reality, the opposite has occurred. We're knee deep in getting ready for the upcoming academic year and trying to keep up with growing ministries. It's a 24x7 challenge. Here's my attempt to quantify it...
The school, daycare and children's ministries are growing. We're working on re-arranging room usage to free up space for additional math classes, the afterschool program and for more Sunday School and Wednesday night programs. That all begins a domino affect on other groups that use our facility. Groups that had been using the Fellowship Hall throughout the year, beginning at 5pm, are having to push their start times back because we need the room through 5:30. The Worship Arts ministry rehearsals are moving to a different night of the week. Sunday morning Adult Bible Fellowships are being moved around so the Children's Ministry can use some of the larger rooms in the building. We're also rescheduling the outside groups that use our building as well. It's a very complicated tango that's being expertly choreographed by our Master Calendar master, Elaine.
We're also taking a hard look at the Children's Wing, reevaluating our usage of the space in that area and looking for more efficient ways to use it to further the direction of the Children's Ministry. For years we've accepted the space as is, but we're now recognizing that in some ways it's inhibiting the ministry.
We've added additional staff this summer including a Pastor, several support positions, an assistant in the Athletic Department plus an Elementary PE Teacher. Of course, as new positions, we didn't have offices for them, so we're busy creating and equipping new offices.
We're reassessing our insurance policies
We're putting in some new interior doors to further isolate our children's areas from the main lobby and gymnasium during school/daycare hours to continue to increase our security measures. If we reach our goal, it should hardly be noticeable on Sundays and Wednesday nights.
We're replacing several rooftop HVAC units - the building is showing it's age.
The annual State daycare white-glove inspection is this week.
We're rethinking our computer network log-in accounts, especially for students. Classes endured long delays logging into our system last year so we're trying to correct that.
I'm working on upgrading our data storage system, we filled that last one up over the span of 18 months - it's getting harder and harder to keep up with the demand for data storage.
I'm working with Betsy, our computer teacher and a couple of IT guys that I've gotten to know who attend Grace to create a strategic roadmap for our IT department for the next 3-5 years to keep our IT stuff up to snuff.
We're considering changing the normal seating configuration in the Auditorium for Sunday mornings.
The Concept Development Team meets for the first time this week. We've been wanting to get that launched for the past two years and are finally getting it off the pad. This is the group that will first devote it's attention to the property across the street and ultimately help us nail down the conceptual direction we'll propose in terms of future expansion.
I realized recently that our web page is due for a content makeover, so we've put that on the to do list, too.
And on top of everything, the financial audit begins today and will continue most of this week.
