The Grace Blog

Session Summary: July 20, 2020

• The Session met via Zoom and began and ended with prayer.
• We had a discussion about Grace as a voting location. Martin Burch presented information about voting and masks.  People are not required to wear masks to vote.  This is a concern for many reasons, including JLL.
  • The Session passed a motion that we lock the north doors (#1) and allow access by key card for staff and JLL families. Voters must enter door #6 by the sanctuary.
  • The Session voted that if we can’t require votes to wear masks for the general election we will not be an election location. (NOTE: this was changed at the August 17 meeting)
• Catherine presented a list of “Grace Outside the Walls” opportunities that the staff created. This includes: Satellite Church Retreats on August 30; OJ Watson Park night in September; and Micro Churches one Sunday in October and November.  The session approved this.
• The Session discussed the return to in person worship and agreed to meet on August 2 at 1 pm.
• We received a Deep Roots Update from Martin.
• Catherine noted that over 50 people signed up for the Christian Discipleship Team’s 14-Day Challenge and two gatherings were scheduled for the week.
• There was a little discussion on the PCUSA Matthew 25 Initiative and an agreement to revisit it.
• The financial reports were approved and received.
• The Session approved the job description for a three-month interim music coordinator.
• Dave McIntire and Darcy Eads were elected to serve as commissioners to the August 11 Presbytery of Southern Kansas meeting.

Session Summary: August 2, 2020 (called meeting)

• The meeting was held via Zoom and opened and closed with prayer.
• The Session discussed whether or not to stay the course with our metric for return to in person worship.
• It was moved to return in in person worship on August 16. The motion failed.
• It was moved to offer outdoor evening worship on Sundays August 16 and 23, in addition to the online morning service. This passed.