I wrote this for our church website a few months ago:
I’ve been working on a definition of the church. It’s for our upcoming sermon series. I’d like to develop a definition that would allow me to explore a single word from the definition each Sunday. The whole venture could take six to eight weeks. Here’s what I’ve got so far: 0 0 1 25 148…
I want to empower people. Not delegate my unwanted tasks to them. In other news, click here for a great article on what the term ‘missional’ means
It’s retreat week around HMC. Today was our all-day staff retreat. We spent the morning with all staff, including our administrators and custodian. We played a team-building game that involved piling everyone onto a ridiculously small tarp–then we tried folding it. Fun. We talked about transition. We told a few lies (ever played 2 truths…
We retreated this week. That’s right, our pastoral team waved goodbye to our families and our offices for 2 days in order to spend time in Stayner, ON. While away we set goals, bounced around ideas for congregational discipleship, and we even had time for a late night game of euchre. But my most significant…
It feels like our church is losing staff members at a record rate. Four pastors/directors (plus another one this June) and two support staff in three years. They’ve either stepped down or moved on to something else. I find it hard to say good-bye to people who have mentored, supported, and shared the same wild…
A couple of weeks ago I announced that I was going to start praying for change. What I didn’t say was that I invited the rest of our staff team to join with me. And since my invitation, we’ve met three times. We spend 1/2 hour talking openly about the transition and 1/2 hour praying…