Extra Edition: 2015 ECCAK Annual Meeting Report April 2015
Annual Meeting Votes Affirmative for Becoming Regional Conference Curtis Ivanoff Approved for Second Term as Field Director After a year-long process of prayerful deliberation and visioning among ECCAK leaders and churches, the annual meeting gathering of delegates voted affirmatively to become a regional conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC). The change will become official at the ECC annual meeting in Kansas City in June. The delegation also approved Curtis Ivanoff to serve another 4-year term in leadership of the conference. His title will be changed from “Field Director” to “Superintendent” pending an affirmative vote at the Kansas City meeting. President Gary Walter addressed the assembly at Elim Covenant Church by phone prior to the vote. He expressed affirmation of our leadership to carry us forward into this new chapter of the work in Alaska. "This is a sign of God's work among us and a sign of the advancement of the kingdom of God, which we trust will be more strongly evident in the days ahead," Walters expressed. “There was a spirit of peace and unity as we made the vote. I felt people were reflective as it was a momentous time,” Cutis said. “We realized that we were making a big decision, one that marks a new chapter
for the work of the Covenant churches in Alaska and there was a sense of God's goodness as the assembly was in one accord.” Along with the change in organizational designation, what has been known as “ECCAK” since 1972, will become known as “the Alaska Conference” of the ECC once the change becomes official. Also present at the meeting were the previous two field directors, Rodney Sawyer and Paul Wilson. Harvey Fiskeaux, chair of the General Council and moderator of the annual meeting, invited Paul, Rodney, and Byron Bruckner, on behalf of Hank Pearson, who served as field director prior to Paul Wilson, to share a word of reflection. Aune Carlson was the ECC representative at the meeting., and shared a letter from Dick Lucco, Executive Director of Ministry Development who was not able to attend in person. More than eighty people traveled from out of town and joined with the congregation of Elim over the five-day conference. Messages given by former field directors, local pastor Bob Curtis, Field Director Curtis Ivanoff, and General Council Chair Harvey Fiskeaux centered on the theme “Living Stones.” "Living Stones" was the conference theme, coming from I Peter 2:5. In the same way that Joshua was instructed to build a pile of stones when the Israelites crossed the Jordan, stones were gathered that delegates and pastors brought from their own communities to commemorate God’s work among us at the meeting, especially the vote to become a conference. What became clear was that, while this would remind us of the important decisions that were made, what is most important is that we would know that the "hand of the Lord is powerful, so that you might always fear the Lord your God."
From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. Ephesians 4:16