This sermon-only transcript omits timestamps, worship music, announcements, and session logistics. YouTube’s automatic captions may contain errors.

All right. Hi everyone. Thank you for joining today. I know everyone's been busy and it's a very long week and so wanted to uh to get the conversation started here. We have a lot of different topics to discuss. Uh first off, we'll give a quick recap on how camp meeting has been going for this week. And then we also want to talk about getting feedback on what we should be doing differently moving forward. And then probably the most important part voting on the hosting church rotation schedule for the next decade basically. U and so right now we only have your Belinda slotted in for next year and beyond that we have not yet determined that schedule.

So we talked about at the church service we have a,50 attendees I think roughly 540 or so uh either you know children to up to young adult. Uh and you can see here from a EM KM perspective we're about 72% EM now and KM is around 28%. Here's the trend year-over-year. You can see the breakdown between EM and KM. Uh EM over the last three years for or actually four years you could say has has gone up significantly. I think during the pandemic there there was a blip there when we came back after that. on the KM side. My understanding part of that blip it's because they are inviting the autoharp group to join which I believe that most of them may not even be avenist uh but they just want to have like people joining and participating.

So they're trying to sustain that too. Uh but certainly at these numbers that we're getting at now dorm room capacity we still have around 400 or so dorm rooms. We're only filling around 360 370. So there's still another about 10% uh room capacity that's left if we really had to. So, we're not quite maxing out PUC in the short term, but if we continue to grow, we'll have to figure out what we can do. We we do have Newton that we could continue to expand into uh a couple other options as well. Let me pause before I jump into other things that we've done. Any questions around these numbers? This one? Okay. Yeah.

All right. Uh we also wanted to talk but yes before 2020 I I don't I don't know if anyone happens to know who's been here that yes kme was 5050 50. So, okay, I'm just repeating it because in the live stream, uh, people can't hear the ambient. So, in case you're wondering why. So, it sounds like we were saying right before COVID, we had hit a peak around 8 to 900. the breakdown was roughly 5050 km versus EM right so you can extrapolate on the EM side we're probably around 4 450 something like that and now if we're at you know 700 plus 760 on the EM side that's that's significant growth as well any other questions on this no all right um some of the initiatives that we have done for this year so if we take a step back in terms of like overall all quoteunquote revenue that we take in or something around like 330K comes in all because of program fees and

dorm room fees, all the fees that you basically pay in. And although we don't have the final expense numbers because we're still in the middle, last year we essentially uh without any uh like extra stuff barely broke even uh on that. And so that if you think about all the volunteer hours, just like a lot of donations in kind, I'm not even counting that just from like a pure dollar perspective. But then we did get a decent amount of donations that did start to come in from last year as well as from this year. So what we wanted to talk about, well, what are we using that money for? Because I think it's one thing just to barely sustain.

It's really an opportunity for us to improve and you hopefully have seen some of these improvements. So this includes although this is all right now like volunteer uh the registration and meal ticketing system when it works. So apologies for lunch today on that one. Uh but that essentially is you know free to camp meeting right if you think about that. The increased department budgets. So each of the departments have a a target budget they want to spend on to benefit their attendees and we increased that for this year as well. So they have more flexibility in what they can offer. Uh we installed the Granger shower divider. So you don't have to have the temporary dividers. I mean, someone built an amazing PVCbased system last year, but that doesn't last. So now they're essentially permanent. We want to continue to expand that to other dorms as well. And then in Dhne, although actually the CM benefited the most, right? But that LED wall, the live

streaming system, all that was actually pretty significant uh contributions. It's actually to PUC, but now camp meeting gets to benefit as well as the college. So the college as an example actually has their um their student body vespers and meetings in DN now versus in the church and so they're actually going to be using this every single week. So it's kind of dual benefit. Yes, these came from donor like specific donors. It wasn't did not come from like the camp meeting budgets per se, right? It was gifted to PUC. Yes, the KM did contribute a little bit as well. I think around 5K or so. Um, but yeah, the rest came from spec basically from specific donors also from a just a general collaboration perspective with the college. So, they they put on a little bit more than they have in the past, right? There's the aviation uh day that they spent and we didn't charge anything extra just because, you know, it was

essentially they they offered their time there. Um, we did have some feedback from folks on the t-shirt side of like, hey, um, I don't want to pay for the t-shirts. Actually, uh, camp meeting your registration did not cover the cost of the t-shirts. Uh, basically, uh, it was essentially entirely, keep me honest, Bobby. I think we entirely covered from the PUC contributing and reducing the cost. And so essentially the t-shirts were free this year. That's partly why it says PUC on it. And just trying to show again like we're not using your money just to like buy you more things. Like a lot of this actually is donor donation in kind. Uh and then another example for VBS, the water slide day that was put on by one of the PC church pastors. They just did that, you know, as a community service. So we're trying to show we're building up more of a partnership, right, with the college.

And I think we've been hearing uh feedback that we're seeing that it's not so transactional. U before I jump to the donation slide, any questions around things that we've done for this year? Right. Uh so we take a look at donations over time. few years ago uh they were decent but also if we look at some of our expenses they were also I think fairly high too for a variety of reasons and so um I don't really have the the break even numbers but uh at least for the last two years we were seeing an increase in these donations and thus you're also seeing the direct results or the the impact that we can have through that essentially it's investing into capital improvements or um enabling those larger department budgets things of of that nature, right? Like allowing more leaders to stay in more rooms versus like squishing them all in.

Something along those lines. There's there's various ways that we can benefit everyone. So, I think so there's there's the discussion topics are left to get some feedback from everyone around uh you know, what should we potentially do a little differently and then the the last slide after this, it's the church rotation schedule. I'm sure you're all waiting for that one. Uh but before we jump into the rotation schedule, part of it is thinking through the burden that camp meeting does incur on each of the volunteers. And as much as we appreciate everyone that comes out to do this, the anecdotal impression that at least we have is maybe some of these members only come out when their church is hosting and then they just burn out. they're just there to serve, right, for the whole week and they're like, "Oh my goodness, I never want to come back again." And they don't come back again till they're called again for the next

host, right? So, they're missing out. They can't join the EM adult services and so forth. And so, trying to find ways to make this more sustainable. There's some simple ones we can think about. Maybe for Garden Cafe, is that something we rethink through? Do we try to simplify that so it's not such a great burden on those organizers? Yes, it's for a great cause, but the real purpose is really for keeping the high school students on campus versus still letting them go off campus, right? So, if we simplify that, that's one opportunity. Um, so I just want to pause and see does anybody have other thoughts there? Yes. Yeah, a sack lunch could be really helpful as you said for people that couldn't make it. Yeah, that's a great idea. Or even for kids. Yeah, sure.

That's a great idea. Any other suggestions? Yes. Yeah. Can we get more of an accurate account? All right. So, we can talk. I'd love to explore this. I'd love to get a pulse check here. The reason today that historically that we've been asking for two required meals to per day is because it was too difficult to try to project if someone's going to come for a meal or not. Strictly speaking, I hate to admit this, right? But the college does not require us to give them two meals on average. We just have to tell them how many meals people are going to show up and they will make that number. But we cannot go over by a certain percent. So, we actually have to be pretty dang accurate in terms of are people going to show up or not. So, we're thinking about this. If we can give you the menu for the American and the Korean meals, would you be

comfortable saying with a reasonable degree of accuracy, yes, yes, no, yes, yes, no. And if so, like you can ultimately swap the meal if you really want because there's there's like a 10% margin in that. Maybe, maybe not. But like uh then that way we can more accurately predict the meal preparation and have less food wastage because actually that's the other issue is we overprepare because we don't know and then now all the food sitting there we have to throw it away. So it's like it's a vicious cycle if we don't get it right. But it does require people upfront to say like Sunday or Monday through Saturday here are all the three meals that you're willing to sign up. So if there's a if there's like a showing of hands perhaps I could ask would you be comfortable like specifically naming the meals or the alternative is we just average it out and say two meals and then you show up and you show up. So

first option is you'd be willing to specify per meals uh down to the day and meal time. Anybody? Yep. It's going to be hard. Yeah. Just the EM alone. Yeah, KM's not going to like that. Well, yeah, that's true, but they're also like only 250, so it's not as critical. All right, so it's at half and half, right? So, it's not a huge percentage here that's willing to commit. So, I think that's the reason why it's really hard to do that prediction. Uh, and so we're just better off making the minimum required. Uh, and then and then we'll we'll just cover it that way. And then if you whatever meal tickets you have left over, we um I think we'll have it set up in the system already. It'll send you a donation receipt at the end of the week. So, we'll say thank you for your donation.

All right. Any other questions or feedback? Yes. Sorry. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah, sure. All right. So, just so I understand correctly, the suggestion here instead of when you have the four big churches host, instead of having the big church host everything including VBS and Garden Cafe, etc., we break it out. So Garden Cafe has its own hosting rotation schedule and it could be shared amongst the smaller churches because that is easier for them to sustain especially since they don't have children's programs necessarily and so it' be very even harder for them to support like BBS which is probably the hardest of all the different programs right okay yeah I think that love to get it sounds great to me um any particular thoughts from anyone else Anyways, Yeah. Yeah, that's good.

Yeah. Okay, let's let's open that up. Yeah, absolutely. Yes, Sandy. I think the the difficulty in this is there's certain like structures, right? So, you have like pastors of churches and as much as I love pastor, I don't know how much visibility they have to knowing what it takes to run a children's program. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. I don't know. But like I wouldn't be surprised if there is a disconnect there. And so those that have run VBS is probably the easiest way to ask. Like if you run VBS, you know what it takes. Uh and then to see do they have people who have done that within their church? And if not, probably they may not quite know what they've signed themselves up for be my reasonable guess.

Yeah. All right. So maybe maybe informally there's something there. I have I think I have two or three hands up. Um yeah. Yeah. All right. U Yeah. Yes, Lisa. That is what so yeah this year I and I believe it's all same in prior years all the revenue raised from garden cafe goes towards the host church's mission trip of choice and so sorry or ministry ministry of choice so all the revenue goes towards that we don't the camp meeting committee or camp does not see any of that we give it It does seem that uh yeah, garden cafe is different compared to every other program to your point and I think someone was mentioning earlier east coast also handles east coast also handles the equivalent of garden cafe completely independently I believe from the rest of programming. Um I think part there's two issues at the moment. One is it is considered part of the host church's responsibility today. So that's

something we should definitely talk about. Second issue potentially is the amount of work that gets put into producing Garden Cafe seems to be increasing every single year. And so now the question is like if we're really doing this for keeping the high school kids on campus and for mission trips like is this the right investment of energy because I feel really bad when I see a bunch of adults sitting out there cooking when they're not attending the EM sessions because they're trying to prepare all the food for the evening. And so it's kind of like do we miss the the mission here? Uh yes. just by having one each church sign up for a booth and then they can kind of manage it. One booth is they're responsible for versus the whole thing.

All right. Sorry. Sure. Yep. I'm sorry. Craig, did you have something you wanted to ask or add? Craig, did you have Can you help me understand what you mean by the Yeah. what they're what they're asking for. As an example, for camp meeting. Yeah. So the ones we know about maybe we'll talk about that. Right. So we have at the highest level the general coordination of camp meeting today that's sustained by a very small number of people. Would love to grow that by the way. So if you are interested in supporting, let's have this conversation too. And then we have the individual programs. So you have, you know, caterpillar all the way up to, you know, collegiate, young adult, and then the adult programs. And then you have, uh, like the service stuff. So you have cafeteria, lunch, breakfast, dinner, you have garden, cafe, I believe. Is that is there anything else that I'm missing?

I think that's it. Uh but but to your point, I think the meal service is quite significant and it's definitely shifted I think in the heavier heavier burden on the EM side compared to prior years. Garden Cafe certainly has increased in amount of energy and investment as well. And so um if there's other hidden areas that you've heard of that people needed help in, it would be great to hear about it. But those are the ones that at least I'm familiar with. Mhm. It's months before Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah. All right. Bring Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Right. All right. So, I'd like to suggest uh we can do a a motion that Garden Cafe would be split out from the hosting church schedule and we'll come up with a different hosting church schedule for just Garden Cafe. I think that's the suggestion that I heard.

Yes. Yep. So it has to be together. Okay. BBS etc. You keep it going. Okay. So here uh yeshuh. Okay. Okay. Oh, the kitchen. We cannot sustain too many. There's only so much room in the kitchen. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I see. I think there are two more hands up at least. Yes. Not necessarily. They could divid up. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Oh, sorry. Uhhuh. Yeah. Less less prep prep work into garden cafe is one option. I think Bonnie I think your hand was up next. Sorry I missed I missed people. Oh yeah, yours was actually Yes. Go ahead, Jeff. For the cafeteria meals right now, it's from what I recall, Vana and Jessica reaching out to each of the churches and then she'll try to allocate bigger churches get more meals and then smaller churches get fewer meals if I recall.

But essentially, she Correct me if I'm wrong, Vonnie. I think you have to ask for like churches to sign up. Yeah, Van is doing all the volunteer, but Okay, that's that's amazing to hear that on the uh the dining comments people have not complained and they they definitely see that as a service. That's really incredible. Uh yes, I see a hand in the back. Yes, absolutely. Oh, okay. Sorry. So, just to understand your suggestion, it is today Garden Cafe all the revenue goes towards the host church. You're suggesting if you decouple that so that whoever does run Garden Cafe essentially keeps the revenue from they're doing that now, but it could be a different church compared to the host church.

Oh, so if the money goes back to camp meeting. Okay. So then there's less incentive to like make garden cafe huge because you're just Yeah. You don't you're not getting the benefit. So sure that's a natural way to adjust the incentive. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I I think it makes a ton of sense. I mean, the impression I have is VB for VBS to be successful, you really have to have a ton of like high school kids that can be the leaders. So if your church doesn't have that youth program, it doesn't matter if you have the adult that knows what to do. You don't have the the leaders to actually run it and then who you're going to tap into the big churches anyway. So yeah. Okay. Any other questions or feedback thoughts?

Yes. Yeah. All day. Yeah. Oh, you have to do both. Yeah, that's too much. Yeah, yeah. Okay, that that's super. Yes. Thank you. And you had your hand up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And just let Yeah. Let the same people run it every single Yeah, that's a really good point actually. And then uh the impression I had I don't know if this is really true this year for the what what we call EM leaders which are like the high school kids some of them would serve like in the morning or after but not all three. So the students we had enough it sounds like whoever is from BBS I don't know if we have Teresa here. It sounded like there was enough EM leaders to kind of rotate to the so the students themselves weren't necessarily getting burned out. So I think part of it is we have to make sure we have that large enough of a pool. But then I think your point is an excellent

one which is for the EM adult the what we call program coordinators let's cross trainin because then for churches that don't have a young youth adult program it's an amazing opportunity to learn what it takes to put something together right and so we don't just keep burning out the same like youth teachers every single year looking at you Maria and Ruth and and others so okay uh and so any other questions or feedback back. All right. So, what I'm hearing is a suggestion. If we were to take out the incentives to make Garden Cafe a oneup every single year, the easiest way to def defang that incentive is we do not raise it towards the money does not go towards a mission trip. Yes, Dan.

Okay. So then how do we change that incentive? Okay. So just This is sir. Yeah, that's a good idea. Okay. Okay, that's good to know. I Thank you, Dan. Yeah, I see three hands up. Yes. Uh I think Andy, I think you might have Okay. All right. Uh, sorry. Real quick. Yes. In the back. Yeah. Your hand up and then Chris and then Yes. question. Pair it together. Oh, okay. Yeah, we can p it that way. Yes, I think Chris Okay. Sure. Okay. All right. That makes a ton of sense. Yes. Yeah. Well, yeah, we could name it in that way. Yeah, that's a great idea, actually. All right. Yes, in the back.

Is there anyone here from Riverside Church? They're all getting ready for Garden Cafe. Yes. There we go. Yeah, there there will always be exceptions we'll have to handle to your point, but the idea is like the EM pastors have met. They seem comfortable with this. We're essentially like speak now or forever hold your peace until we have a real reason to come up and then to change something. And the idea was we try to lock this in. But yes. doesn't care Yeah. It's a lot less than ever before. Yes, that is very true. No, no, yeah, it's mostly Yeah, those three. Uh, speakers. Yeah. Yep. Yes. Yes, Paul. Yep. Yeah. Uh to split it out, I mean Oh, yes, Jen. Go ahead.

So that's Yeah, my suspicion because I haven't been part of that committee. My suspicion is it's mostly just whichever volunteers are willing to lead that effort at this point. Uh it it is but we have like no capacity to so it's like okay your blind is next year. I don't I haven't talked we've been so focused admin so focused on this year. We're now talking about locking in dates on 2028 which I'm actually happy to talk about because that's going to be quite different in two years time, right? Um so I agree it's really important. We just don't it's a it's a but there's other things that are more burning. So we need help basically is the short answer. So would love help on that.

Yeah. Uhhuh. Absolutely. Yeah. Oh, yes. just for em. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Sure. Yeah. coordinators are. All right. That's great to know. Yep, you have your committee or that group. Thank you. Any other feedback or questions? All right. So, it sounds like in terms of this rotation, the suggestion for the committee now is to find ways to break it. Look at if we want to split out garden cafe. Well, let me actually go back to what Dan was saying earlier. Now there is a a reminder I guess that the host church responsibilities are less than what they have been in prior years. So, uh, if it really is limited to VBS, Garden Cafe, and then kind of triangulating fires and speakers, then is there additional thoughts of should we still look at splitting one of these out, or does there still a concern in terms of how the churches are supporting those?

Just know for that week. Okay. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Yep. So, uh maybe we can pose that question. Oh, yes. Go ahead. I just They would be like, "Sorry, I personally We can't we can't force you guys. Okay. Okay, that's super helpful. Yes. Thank you. Yes. Okay, that's helpful. Any other feedback from the smaller churches? Would you prefer or do you have bigger challenges of getting members to attend? Silicon Valley, would you prefer to join to? Yes. Is anyone here from BBS? They're all They're all sleeping. We don't have anyone here from VBS to answer that question. They're they're toast. Yes. You have VVS? Yeah. I don't know the answer. Yes. Uh I Sorry, Kevin. I think Oh, right.

Well, we we had a we had we had Esther. So, you you my friend just wrote a check. You cannot cash. Okay. Yeah, he's going to my church. Wait a second. All right, I hear. Yes. Yes. No, we just only VBS. Only VBS. Yeah. Yeah. We could explore. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Espec Yeah. Yeah, for sure. We can find something in the middle. And I think there's still something we can explore in terms of garden cafe being potentially handled separately in certain cases. Maybe it's the host church's first prerogative. You want to host it, great. If you'd prefer not to, we can then be flexible there. U I know we're coming up on time.

Any I did want to ask a question around 2028 dates because we're we're having conversations right now about that. I think for the rotation what we can do is basically go back to the pastors and say like this is what we think, what we heard, and here's the options, how we want to handle it. Um, it's just an opportunity if if you have opinions, go basically talk to your pastor to make sure that opinion is heard before the pastor says, "Okay, we're we're gonna we'll agree to it." Any other questions or feedback on this topic before I jump to 2028 dates? No. All right. So, next year it's July 18 to 24, right? I don't think we've ever put that in writing anywhere, but uh that is the date for next year.

That's essentially locked in. What what is open right now is 2028. And the complexity is the um Korean side, Central California Conference pastors are hosting the KM side. And so Cal happens the week right before the second week of July, which is right before the third week of July, which is when we typically have camp meeting. So we are exploring whether we can find ways to get them to still do it. If not, that's the first preference is to keep the third week. If we can't, we have to pick different weeks, either the fourth week of July or the first week of July. Fourth week, we know doesn't work well because Southern and other schools already start. So now we're questioning we've never to my knowledge done the first week of July which is essentially the July 4th weekend. Uh, and I know you asked for that in the survey and I haven't asked for the survey results to see if that supports that date. But the

silver lining there is if you're going to take time off, you don't have to take as many days off because now you have the fourth of July weekend theoretically, right? So any specific feedback around fourth first the first week of July potentially being a viable day and even by the way even if we are able to lock in the third week of July for 2028 when we comes to 2029 probably we're going to have to shift to first week of July anyway. And the reason is PUC is shifting to a semester system. And so they're going to start mid August. And if we keep this date, it's very hard for them to prep the campus for a mid- August start. So the midpoint, which is what we're at right now, actually naturally becomes the first week of July. They're looking to transition in 2028.

Uh but the transition is difficult because it means it's a quarter system ending and then they start in the semester. So they don't actually like the first week of July for that reason. But we just want to know feedback from this group. How good or bad on the first week of July whether in 2028 or 2029 onwards. So if you raise your hand if you would say first week of July does not work for you. It's a bad idea. Yes. Raise your Oh okay okay. Okay. So, we're trying to Yes, David. Okay. very last. Okay. So, just for the live stream. So, first preference is third week of July and then you said first week of August is actually number two and then end of July. I end of June. Did I hear was third or second? second week of July and then end of June and then the very last one selected is the first week of July.

Okay, that's gonna be fun. Yeah. Yeah. 30 Okay. At least it won't be until 2028, 2029. So, at least next year won't be affected. All right. Any other questions or thoughts anyone would like to share before we wrap up? No. All right. Thank you, Dan. Yeah. All right. Yeah, fair enough. Okay. So, we won't we won't ask for a vote. Really appreciate the your listening session and hearing your thoughts and hearing your feedback. We will do what we can to incorporate your thoughts and we'll go from there. Any other final thoughts? No. All right. So, thank you so much for coming today. I really appreciate your engagement, your feedback. Uh as a reminder, the evening session will be in the main sanctuary. So this is the last time that we will see you here in lecture hall one. All right. Hope you have a great rest of the afternoon.

Sabbath afternoon. Thank you. Thank you.