Duane Kelderman
I'm a minister in the Christian Reformed Church. I grew up in Oskaloosa, Iowa, attended Calvin College and Seminary, and served three congregations--in Lambertville, Michigan, Littleton, Colorado, and Grand Rapids, Michigan--before serving as Vice President for Administration and Professor of Preaching at Calvin Seminary. After ten years at CTS I have done interim ministries, taught courses and Calvin College and Calvin Seminary, and done organizational consulting.
Posted in: Job Descriptions and Council Leadership
I appreciate your post, Neil. To expand 3.c., the need for information, I find that often an organization is unaware of what it has already done on a particular issue. Often there is a significant historical trail of action on an issue, and often it's really good stuff! One of the challenges for churches (and this applies at local, classical and synodical level) is institutional memory, not for nostalgia's sake or to resist change, but to actually know what the church has done on this issue and why.
One strategy going forward might be for churches to keep their minutes online (behind passwords of course) in searchable formats. We have all of our recent seminary minutes (the past few years) online that way. The benefit of that will grow as time goes on. It's great when I can't remember which committee made a decision on something. Insert a key word in the search engine. Boom. There it is. Any church has free access to such features. With google every council member could have access to all the minutes of the church anywhere in the world. Time to go to work . . .
Thanks again, Neil!
Duane Kelderman