Question: What process is in place for filling the Classic Worship Leader role at the Lexington Campus?
Answer: A team including the Lexington Campus Team, our cross-campus worship team, and members of the Classic worship choir and orchestra are working collaboratively on next steps.
Question: What happens to the parking during the construction on 2 Militia Drive?
Answer: As soon as the construction project begins, we will lose parking at 3 Militia Drive, but we will continue to have parking availability at 2 Militia Drive. In addition, the developer is building a six-story parking garage of which we have secured long-term limited parking spaces for Sunday mornings through an easement that travels with the land to subsequent owners if the developer were to sell or redevelop the property. We will continue to seek other parking solutions for special events and our growth needs.
Question: What space will be available for ministry meetings when the 2nd and 3rd floors at 2 Militia Drive are under construction?
Answer: Our Facilities Team, working with the Lexington Campus Team, are mapping all the 2 Militia Drive events into available spaces at 59 Worthen Road which has lots of open space throughout the week and even on Sundays.
Question: Will Grace Chapel consider people already on staff for our Senior Pastor position?
Answer: Yes, as in each of our prior search processes, we will consider anyone who submits their interest for the position, including those currently on staff.
Question: With three years of deficits, are we looking at things to stop doing in order to save money, as it seems like we are putting additional burdens on our current staff and is that sustainable?
Answer: We continue to evaluate all our activities and ministry workload for our staff. It’s true that our dedicated staff has stepped up to take on more in this season. We continue to work with all our staff and ministries to add support and raise up volunteers to keep ministries moving forward while balancing our staffing needs.
Question: Will there be a season of prayer and fasting as we search for our new Senior Pastor?
Answer: We have a variety of prayer and care ministries at each campus that are ongoing. Some of these have refocused on our Senior Pastor search and the process ahead. However, we love this idea and although nothing formally has been established yet, there has been a lot of encouragement for prayer and appreciate the recommendation to both fast and pray.
Question: Are there members of the Board of Elders who are permanent, or do they all rotate off?
Answer: All the Elders have four-year terms and can serve up to two consecutive terms. The Senior Pastor and Executive Pastor positions are also on the Elder Board, but these two positions share one vote as needed.
Question: Who are the fiduciaries for the church – is that the Board of Elders?
Answer: Yes, the Elders have ultimate responsibility and oversight of the church assets.
Question: Regarding the search committee – will that be an all-new group or the same folks?
Answer: The search committee has not been formed at this point. There is however an Elder pre-search committee in place to discuss the process and plan moving forward. We do anticipate that there will be new people participating in the next search process.
Question: Membership fluctuations – are we growing in church members or losing church members?
Answer: We count Sunday attendees and individual engagement in our ministries as our focus is not exclusively on membership. We do promote the faith step and benefits of membership regularly, and encourage all our people to take that step by engaging in our Explore Membership class and the eventual membership process.
Question: Staff turnover seems high especially the past few years – is this a problem we need to address?
Answer: While we miss the folks who leave, our staff turnover is fairly consistent with a healthy organization. It’s always hard to have our wonderful staff move on but we also celebrate the many new ways our past staff are serving and growing the Kingdom in new ways not always available at Grace Chapel. That includes the fact that Grace Chapel has always supplied experienced leadership to other Greater Boston and New England churches from within our staff and congregation.
Question: The annual report shows that attendance is up – how is that measured?
Answer: Our usher team at each campus does a count at our services so that we understand the trends in those attending. We need to understand both in-person and online attendance and connections. We have check-in systems for Children’s and Student Ministry attendance as well. We also focus most of our attention on the engagement of our congregation in our many ministries and ask our leaders to take attendance so we can better understand how to best serve our community today and in the future.
