Purpose - To oversee the ministry mission of the Region by fostering, supporting, and working with mission clusters, standing committees, and individual congregations to carry out the mission of the church. This committee also consists of members of the Region's standing committees as well as representatives from the mission clusters.

Since the last Annual Gathering on April 29, 2023 the Ministry Council has met three times on Zoom, typically on the last Tuesday of months that have five Tuesdays.

We are continuing to work through the details of the CCNCN Housing and Shelter Ministry that was started in 2022. The purpose of this project is to help members of CCNCN congregations maintain safe and secure housing and to advocate for more affordable housing across the region. J. Norman Bardsley of LaFayette Christian Church presented a workshop at the 2019 Annual Gathering highlighting the struggle that many of our church members are facing due to the lack of affordable housing in our state. By the end of that calendar year, the region had raised enough seed money raised by direct donations and existing seed money to launch the project. The Ministry Committee formed a housing sub-committee to develop what we hoped would be a fair and consistent application process. Since 2022 has helped two applicants find and maintain housing. The original goal was to assist five individuals per year who are experiencing homelessness. We continue to struggle with finding people and partner agencies to provide case management and follow-up

An education sub-committee continues to work on addressing the region's ministry objectives by developing educational events that meet the region's ministry needs. Some of the committee's ideas have been implemented through workshops and panels at Annual Gathering, but we are still hopeful that other educational opportunities can be brought to our region's congregation and mission clusters.

Another struggle that we are addressing is in finding people to fill the various leadership positions in the current regional structure. Many of our congregations have struggled to find leaders to govern their own ministries which has transferred over to the regional expression of the church. In addition to the struggle to find lay leaders from congregations to fill these positions, we are also seeing a number of our clergy retiring or moving on to other ministries outside our region. We have recently been talking about ways in which we can develop and train people to serve as regional leaders.

Respectfully Submitted

Jesse Kearns, Moderator