Where did this come from??

By Rebecca Thomas
So Daniel, Joshua and I are in the process of moving. Fun, right? You know the drill: you start going through your current house, making a game plan for how you are going to pack. Logically, it should be a simple endeavor of just moving all the things you have from one space to another. I mean, this is all OUR STUFF, after all; we should know what everything is, when we got it, why we still need it, and where to put it in the future. (I can tell you are already smirking.) Even if you haven’t moved before, you must know that feeling of “where did all of this come from?” as well as, “but we can’t just get rid of it, can we?” and “where is all this supposed to go?!" Coincidentally, this reminds me so much of where CGS is with our constitution right at the moment. 

Last year, the council and Pastor Manda started working together to update our CGS constitution. We had a great plan to make it completely up to date, accurate, and address our current congregational needs. As it turned out, we were instead confronted with a little bit of “where did this come from?,” a dash of “do we still need this?,” and a helping of “can we just get rid of it?” Just like with moving, updating an institutional document is never as simple as one would hope. We found numerous details that needed more focus and debate than anticipated - not to mention grammatical errors, numbering issues, and all those little tidbits that can make your eyes cross.  Yes, we could metaphorically just shove everything into a box, store it in the attic, and hope we can find it later when we need it…but that is not how we want to handle this. We want our constitution to have no inconsistencies, no errors, and no room for misinterpretation. It is sad to say that through his work with the Synod, Randy Presuhn has witnessed other congregations at battle within themselves over minute details or omissions in their constitutions. We want our constitution - we need it to be - accurate down to the nth degree to be certain we are protecting the members of CGS, our mission, and our goals as a community. 

Thankfully, patient and detail-oriented Randy is willing to help us out and make sure we do this well. Over the next couple months a few designated council members will have open meetings with Randy in which we will hash out the details, decide on changes in the way we define ourselves and operate, and make preparations for our future. If you want to be a part of the decision making process or want to discuss the options that we're choosing, we hope that you'll join the meetings. The plan is to have a draft before November, when we gather again to vote. 

We waited a little too long to tidy up this part of our congregation and like packing up our house, the job has grown bigger than we anticipated. We hope that this plan satisfies our need for an open debate while also honoring our time and energy in a congregational meeting. And next time, we won't wait so long to do this spring cleaning and hopefully we won't be frustrated again. Thank you for your patience! 
 

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