A Posting from Pastor Lindy
Hello Pilgrims,
Nothing says being back in the saddle quite like our monthly Church Council meeting which gathered after a month break last night. And heavens, did we have a packed agenda! Thankful for the focused leadership of our moderator, Nathan Olawsky, who deftly shepherded us through a number of significant issues that will help strengthen the structure of being church. As much as we think of Pilgrim as a “small” church, our footprint has grown pretty significantly, requiring more developed systems to meet our need. Grateful for the Pilgrim leaders who held with care the decisions before them, understanding the importance of these additional processes. Equally grateful for the new chairs of our Pilgrim boards who joined last evening, stepping into their first Council meeting which could easily have felt like baptism by fire.
One of the agenda items before Council was the Nominating Committee’s presentation of the 2026//2027 slate of officers. Council does not need to approve that slate, rather review it before being sent to the congregation, which they did. As I have named, this was a more challenging year for our Nominating Team, but with grace and hope, they did their job well! Please thank our team: Charlie Clotfelter, Ami Nagle, Brian Hummel and Carol Rawls for their perseverance and dedication to the task at hand. Then perhaps double back to Charlie and thank him again as he concludes his 4 year tenure, much of which has been as Committee Chair. Pilgrim is indebted to his wisdom and leadership.
Nathan will speak more about the amendments that will also be presented at our congregational meeting on August 30, immediately after worship. They are minor, but necessary, changes that adjust our by-laws to meet the needs of the changing systems and structures I mentioned above. One is to remove specifying which month our biannual congregational meetings are held to help us shift the nominating and election process earlier in the year so that tenure of the officers has a better on-ramp. The second is to help Pilgrim build a stronger financial team through the office of the Treasurer while not placing the personnel burden completely in and through the board of Trustees, while still being the board of oversight. Both changes have been endorsed by Council, and I pray, will help us operate more efficiently and effectively.
As an end note for this letter, I draw your attention to our Treasurer team of Chuck Clifton, David Heist and Melanie Dunshee. As has been named by the 3 previous Treasurers in my tenure, this is one of the most challenging positions in the church. Expanding the one person team to three is helping, and the demands are still significant. Our prayer is that our migration to ChurchTrac will help even more, while I am also mindful that most of our fellow Durham church neighbors use outside support for this vital function given the complexity of church finances. I share this to invite you to offer your gratitude to our Treasurer team who spends a significant part of their non-working hours keeping our finances in check. It is a huge ask for volunteers and we are deeply indebted to them.
grateful as always, Pastor Lindy
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