Dear Sanctuary and United,
As you are aware, a small group of elders from both congregations has been working through a list of 25 issues related to the merger of our churches. Bob Kunde, Frank Troth, Amy Mitchell, Ralph Graves, and Mark Mohrlang have given ourselves the very creative title of “Merger Team.” The initial goal in working through these various issues was to identify how close our churches are in our mission, governance, culture, hopes, budget, theology… You get the idea. In short – we are not meaningfully far apart in any of these areas – and we continue to believe that God has brought our churches together for a purpose, and that we are indeed better together.
We continued to move forward in our work, imagining what our future church might look like in each of these areas. In addition the team crafted Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws, as well as a very basic combined budget. Having reviewed these drafts, the elders of both churches have a shared understanding that we are moving towards merging, and have a rough timeline (below) of the next steps we will take to pursue this path. As we share these documents and this timeline for your review, please don’t hesitate to reach out to your elders with any questions or feedback you may have. And pray. Please pray for our churches, for the leaders of our churches, for our shared life together, and for our witness to our neighbors – that in all things Christ would be glorified through his church.
The timeline we have in mind is this:
- JUNE
- We will publish drafts of the (a) Articles of Incorporation, (b) Bylaws, and (c) our responses to the 25 issues (see links below). Both congregations will have the summer months to review, ask questions, and offer feedback to their respective elders.
- June 8: Immediately following the service, we will hold a joint town-hall style conversation where the elders can share about particular elements of the merger, with a generous time of Q & A at the end.
- Sometime this fall
- Each church would hold separate congregational meetings, at which time appropriate votes necessary to merge churches would happen. One aspect of these votes will be both congregations relinquishing their connections to their respective denominations. If the votes are in favor of merging, we anticipate wrapping up the process of becoming one church by the end of 2025.
- After the merger
- The merger team believes that the proper order of steps is to merge first, then task a smaller group to help us discern where our new denominational home should be. We will likely need to amend portions of the governing documents to align with a new denomination. Mindful of this, we are seeking to keep these interim documents lean and focused.
The timeline in visual form (thanks Steve!):
A few highlights:
- Important links:
- Draft Articles of Incorporation
- Draft Bylaws
- 25 issues to determine the feasibility of merging (where a link to the combined budget can be found)
- We have not settled on a name for our merged church. “Crown Hill Church” has been used as a placeholder for the time being. Please be in prayer for a good name. Closer to the fall we will invite you to submit ideas for a church name to the merger team.
- We concluded that in practice the two churches are similarly governed by elected leaders acting on behalf of the congregation and bringing certain items to the congregation for vote.
- In many ways we are already functioning as one church (in worship, in ministry, and in our relationships with one another). Though much of these documents are oriented towards the organizational aspects of the church, we believe that the merger will “make official” what is largely already true – that we are brothers and sisters in Christ, seeking to honor and follow our Lord in the places he has called us. Our hope and our prayer, by God’s grace, is that we truly would be better together.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out to your respective elders with any questions. You may also send questions or feedback through this form.
And pray for your elders as we seek to listen, lead, and serve well.
In Christ,
Amy Mitchell, Ralph Graves, & Mark Mohrlang on behalf of the elders of Sanctuary and United
