All Session members were present along with guests Sharon Kuhn and Carla Wooten. We prayed specifically for eight of our church families.  We heard reports from the pastor about families that have recently attended and been contacted by him and others. The Walk Through the Bible program was recent held and attended by 44 people. The Trellis team reported that our May financials closed with a $11,300 surplus, helping to catch up from earlier deficits and leaving us $3,200 overall below budget for the year.  Continue to pray for wisdom as the Session deals with this issue. About 20 people are regularly attending the Wednesday evening “Your Questions, God’s Answers dinner and study. Cards will be going out to people moving to our church neighborhood over the next four months and will introduce them to our church. Vacation Bible school in cooperation with Lakemont PCA will be held in our facilities next week. The Worship team has introduced the weekly Westminster Whispers and Winds email for church wide announcements and encouragement. We are urged to review this information each week. June 26^th we are hosting a families with children luncheon after morning worship.  The ladies are encouraged to attend the upcoming “Meet and Eat” on July 15^th, and a church wide dinner is being planned for July 31. Sharon Kuhn has just returned from a mission’s trip to Kenya. Sign up to adopt a missionary that we support. Pastor Mark and Dan will be attending General Assembly in Birmingham next week. The matter we have before Savannah River Presbytery is still pending and continuous to need our prayers. There are many activities and plans in process to minister well to the members of Westminster and our community. Please pray for God’s blessing, and if you have a talent or area of interest please talk to the elders or pastor or ministry team leaders for how you might also help.  We also could use more help with children’s church activities. Please see Karrie Harmer.  

All Session members were present along with guest Millie Moore for our meeting this week.  We prayed for eight of our families.  We heard reports from the pastor about families that have recently attended and been contacted.  Special plans have been made to celebrate the life of Chris Bourne with her family and friends this coming Sunday at 4 PM at our church, and there will be no evening prayer service.  The National Day of Prayer is on May 5th and the sanctuary will be open from 10-12 AM for those that would like to pray at the church.   The Walk Through the Bible program is coming up on Saturday, June 11.  The Trellis team reported that our fiscal year closed on March 31 with giving $43,000 short of our expenses for the year and our cash on hand down to $71,000.  Pray for wisdom as the Session deals with this issue.  Pastor Mark attended the recent Savannah River Presbytery meeting.   Sharon Kuhn will be traveling to Kenya for 11 days starting May 16th to help lead some women’s ministries and would appreciate our prayers.  Prime Timers are visiting the lake at the Nielsen’s on May 10th, and start planning now to attend a church picnic on May 21.  The discipleship team reported on the “Your Questions, God’s Answers” Wednesday evening meal and presentation that started this past Wednesday and will continue every other Wednesday.   The Church Growth team reported on a new digital sign that has been donated and will be installed soon.  The deacons are having roof repairs done on the Palmer wing restrooms.  We are joining Lakemont to have VBS at our church on June 20-24.  There are many activities and plans in process to minister well to the members of Westminster and our community.  Please pray for God’s blessing, and if you have a talent or area of interest please talk to the elders or pastor, or ministry teams leaders about how you might also help.

The full session, together with C. Willams (a pastoral intern from First Presbyterian), and M. Moore met and heard a brief devotion from Pastor Mark on Hebrews 13:7, 17. We are perfecting a new policy on admitting children to the Lord’s table upon profession of faith.  A congregational meeting was called for March 27 to elect new officers and to present the new budget. We met with Kathy Scholten and Joshua Ling, the Fellowship and Creative Team Leaders.  We approved a request from the Mission Team to have our Missionaries be a focus of our Sunday Evening Prayer meetings every 6 weeks.  We added a few things to our Easter Morning Schedule on April 17 – Eric Eagle will lead an Easter Sunrise service at 7 am followed by a breakfast at 8 am. Two AC repairs were approved. Two minor changes in worship: the ushers/deacons will come forward with the offering to present it before the Lord during the song after the collection, and we will have one elder available on the choir side of the sanctuary to pray for covenant children during communion. We each prayed for various needs in the congregation.

January 2022

Eric Eagle lead your session in a devotion from John 9 on the fear of the parents and the boldness of the son.  John Etheridge was present as an observer. We determined the 2 elders and 3 deacons who have been nominated and are willing to stand for election at our March Congregational meeting.  Next year’s budget process was discussed and a potential budget target was reached. We reviewed our membership rolls and will be contacting in person or by letter several absent members.  Five members were removed from the rolls due to moving out of the area or absence from worship for over a year. A Walk Thru the Bible emphasis on the New Testament seminar in June was approved, as was a Jews for Jesus Christ in the Passover event on April 7.  The Mission will also present a Voice of the Martyrs movie, Sabina: Tortured for Christ, The Nazi Years on March 11. We approved the pastor giving the benediction from the back of the church and the production of a card to invite others to our Church.  We had earlier approved a monthly bring-your-own fellowship meal after church.  Covid delayed the implementation of this monthly meal.  It will begin soon. A letter from the session regarding prayer for the future of our church will be sent out soon.  Our 9 ministry teams are beginning their walk and some of their labors are already bearing fruit. Pray for us as we, in faith, move into God’s future together.

Pastor Mark shared a reading from a biography of RC Sproul for our devotional.  

• We established a committee to look into our giving to denominational causes and their ‘askings’ request for next year’s budget.  
• We shelved until next year a proposal to add two bookshelves and a closet to our current library.  We will be placing some books in the narthex to highlight our collection with an honor system check-out policy.  
• Laura Dekle, from Engaging Disability with the Gospel, will begin to receive our support of $200 per month. 
• Our sound guys are continuing to work with other sound guys to approve the sound in the sanctuary.  A professional evaluation is taking place and a proposal will soon follow.  
• We will be having family Advent Readings before worship beginning at the end of this month. Kris Finlay will be organizing the schedule. Plans are afoot for a Walk Thru the Bible event next June; this time running through the New Testament. More information will follow. 
• An extra communion service after our morning worship will be held on November 14th at Thrive.  Space is limited. See Pastor Mark if you want to attend.  
• An updated Ministry Team Structure and Ministry Team Leaders was approved.  Leaders will be trained soon.  
• We have scheduled a Church-wide Fellowship meal for December 5 after the morning service. Training on how to get the most out of your devotions will be given. 
• We will begin to receive nominations for new elders and deacons in the month of December.  Nomination forms will be available in the narthex soon. 
• We also discussed the need for additional equipping for ministry.  We have many who serve well and we want them to pass on their knowledge by mentoring others into ministry.  
• We decided to call the congregation to persistent prayer over the next two months asking God to show us at Westminster what we should do to grow spiritually and numerically.  This will be emphasized at our Sunday Evening Prayer meetings.  All are encouraged to attend. 

The brotherly spirit and camaraderie at our meetings are such an encouragement. Our next meeting is scheduled for December 13 at 5:30 pm.

Your session met on Tuesday, July 13 from 5:30 to 8:30 pm.  Ed Payne encouraged us to see the greatness of God, known through Scripture, and described in the Westminster Confession of Faith, as a great aid to our worship. We gratefully received a $500 gift from Lakemont PCA for our hosting their VBS in June. We transferred two families to Christ Church Presbyterian at their request.  We received Ella Kate into communicant membership after hearing her profession of faith. Bryan gave a brief report of a long, but good, General Assembly Meeting. Pastor Mark will attend the Presbytery meeting in Lyons on Saturday. We will contract with Followers in Fellowship to allow the Classical Conversations group to meet at our church on Fridays during the school year.  We discussed a new prayer initiative, the Walk Thru the Bible seminar, mercy ministry, shepherding concerns, Covid-restrictions, and the Sunday Evening Prayer meeting.  We will restart the Usher Ministry, passing the plates for our collection, and our pre-Covid communion procedures beginning August 1, 2021. We will have a fellowship meal on July 18 to hear from Rev Andy Lee and welcome our new members from the last year.  A special Sunday School class for our new members to grow in our knowledge of our church, God, and one another will begin sometime in August.  Pastor Mark will guide the class.  Our financial transition to Queenborough Bank has gone smoothly and we altered our phone service to update our ancient equipment. It is one of the greatest gifts from God for us to find a home, a welcome, and a family in the church fellowship. Westminster is such a home and a blessing for many.  Pray that God would add to our numbers and deepen our fellowship with God and with one another.

Your session met three times last month.  Two times we gathered to receive new members; Scott and Chris Harris, and John and Vanessa Etheridge. We met once to discuss Stewardship and increasing our giving to missions.  So, here are a few things that we are working on.

We are considering a new proposal to increase our giving to missions through special offerings and thereby adding to the number of missionaries that we support.  This is a work in progress but we will have a missionary visit on July 18 to discuss his future work. Also, we are seeking to reinvigorate our ministry teams.  Covid produced something of a parenthesis year and we would like to get things cranked up again. And finally, we are in the final stages of promotion for the Walk Thru the Bible presentation called OT live for July 24.

Session Summary

March 2021

Ed Payne walked us through the Kingdom of God in 5 minutes ending with 2 Corinthians 15:23-26 for our opening devotion. April 13 at 5:30PM is our next session meeting.  We approved Ted Kuhn and Bryan McReynolds to stand for a three year term at elders.  A Congregational meeting has been called for March 28 after the morning service to received the Budget and to vote on these two men as elders. Roy Smith and Gary Mullen were thanked for their service as they are rotating out of active office. We approved a Budget that is $28,000 less than year, but still about $16,000 more than we will collect this year.  Year to Date our expenses are $8,000 more than our receipts. We have many reasons to thank God for faithful giving during the year of Covid. 

We will continue to offer a livestream service in the old Sunday School room with extra Covid precautions.  We will revisit this each session meeting.  Communion will return to twice a month beginning in May.  We will celebrate communion on March 21, April 18, May 9 and 23.  A new Shepherd Watch-care list is available and will be published soon. We are looking into the possibility of hosting two Walk Thru the Bible seminars; one this year and one next year. An “Awakened, not Woke,” conference is also being explored.  Lakemont PCA, in the absence of have their own facilities, will be having their VBS at our facility from June 21-24.  Columbia County as also requested the use of our facility for Election Day.  Our deacons will look into this possibility. Special events around Easter are also being prepared.

Roy Smith shared some devotional thoughts from John 11:45-47. Gary Mullen was absent with notice as he was following a Covid protocol isolation.  Scott Duffin reported on a refinancing offer from Queensborough Bank.  The Administration Team will vet the offer and make a recommendation to the session.  Ben and Hannah Field were joyfully received into membership.  They are transferring from Faith Presbyterian in Long Beach, CA.  We received a report from the Web Site Team and their desire to launch a new website in March.  Also, we approved a proposal to update our wireless equipment so as to provide reliable internet throughout both buildings. The McKnight shoe donation for adoption expenses has been started with reception bins in the foyer and the fellowship hall. A class for the children of the church who may be ready to make a profession of faith will begin in March. Several ideas for evangelism and discipleship were shared included a bus ministry to Fort Gordon, passion week events, Home groups and Men’s breakfast restarting, a possible podcast, Sunday Evening schedule (Home Groups, worship service, prayer meeting?), and a possible outreach to the Veritas Academy and Classical Conversations. A Jews for Jesus Christ in the Passover event will be hosted by Westminster on March 25 at 7:30pm.  Your shepherds are updating our Elder Watch Care lists. The prayer ministry of the church was a source of great encouragement to the elders as well as the peace and unity that has prevailed in our congregation through the unique and pressing challenges that Covid-19 has presented.  Many of those isolating in our congregation and beyond may soon receive a thoughtful gift – the brainchild of Karrie Harmer.  God is good and He is doing good.  Our labor in the Lord is not in vain. May he be glorified in both in our ministry and life together as the body of Christ.