Evergreen Board Meeting

[Haruo]

[Haruo]

We also had a report on the PCBA's application to join Evergreen. is a group of disenfranchised California churches, mostly ABC but one is SBC, that has approached Evergreen about joining our region as a group. They have eleven churches, four or five of which are already member churches of Evergreen, and almost all the rest of which are affiliated with other ABC Regions (Wisconsin; Rochester-Genesee; Metro NYC, maybe another?). Our Roberts Unregulated Order makes it somewhat less controversial for a group to join than it would be if our decision-making were based on up-and-down votes with majorities and supermajorities and voiceless minorities. But it still seems to me that there may be some issues to be resolved. I gather PCBA is having their annual meeting next weekend and Evergreen is sending observers.

[Haruo]

We were also reported to on the three decisions that came out of a leadership retreat at Camp Burton in February. The first dealt with empowering local churches to reach unreached people groups in their neighborhoods, as I recall; the second dealt with financial stewardship and our relationships to our monies. The third was to hold at least 500 conversations about Evergreen and our approach to discussion and decision-making, and our ethnic caucuses, at the Biennial in Pasadena. This is in part motivated by a perceived misperception of Evergreen as being built around an AWAB approach to sexual orientation issues; while I think it is obvious that these issues (and the desire of some in ABCNW to disfellowship the two AWAB churches in the region and scare others out of going that route) provided the catalyst, the trigger, for the creation of Evergreen as a Region, those issues are not central to who we are as a Region and what we are about. And what is central (and little perceived or appreciated) is what we want the rest of the denomination to know (about us, and potentially about themselves). So to speak. Our goal is to create a basis for discussion and decision making that values the voices of all, that gives all a place at the table, and that ensures that neither numerical preponderance nor loudness overrides minorities or those of quiet voices.

If any of you (Timothy... Anybody else?) are in Pasedena I'll be interested to learn whether you heard Evergreen's voices there.

[Bruce Gourley]

Haruo, thanks for keeping us updated on Evergreen happenings!