Staff Retreat
Yesterday was a great day as our 12 full and part-time ministry staff had an all-day retreat. I love how even those who are part-time figure out to give us a full day on this. We went just down the road to White Hawk Country Club, where they always take great care of us (for free!). Thanks, White Hawk!
What do we discuss on our retreats? Yesterday was a combination of experiences:
-Celebrate wins…people who have come to Christ, people stepping up in leadership, east campus launch prep
-Pray Together for our church…both needs/crises we are aware of and for each person’s relationship with Jesus
-Define Reality…today we took a 1/2 hour to reflect on the lives of those who don’t live in “church world” What is happening in our country? What is happening culturally? How do these big picture shifts and trends affect our people in everyday life? Thought this was a really powerful part of today.
-Discuss the new book Itby Craig Groeschel. We do some type of staff development every month and this was a good one that Mary Beth led us through.
-Experience the “Online Campus” of (they have a service at noon on Tuesdays) www.lifechurch.tv— an internet campus is an intriguing idea to me, but there are so many ways it is different we really want to explore it as a legitimate expression of “church”. I’ll post on this by itself sometime.
-Have lunch together…always fun.
-Discuss a wide variety of agenda items that we needed some extended time to discuss
- Making our mission (Being Used by God to change Lives) not only KNOWN, but OWNED.
- Determining our “target” audience as a church. We never want to exclude people, but there are lots of times when you need to know who you are aiming for. I’ll post on this some more later also.
- Renewing our commitment (as staff) to be leaders and equippers, not “doers”.
- Look at the 2009 budget…hard decisions to make here with current state of finances.
- Talk about changing staff meeting rhythms.
- Discuss possibility of adding a Saturday night service.
It was a good day (accomplished from 9am-4pm!) that will push us forward more quickly than if we just spread those things out of 1/2 dozen staff meetings.
And…note to self: Next staff retreat day, don’t schedule a 7:00am meeting and a 6:30pm elders meeting on the same day!
.Real.Greg.Lee. 
Although I make it a point to get Sunday mornings off for church, and Home Depot honors that, I still think a Saturday night service would be great. For those who are far from God, or searching, a Saturday night slot might be a good match. Can’t wait to see what comes next.
Oops, that was Lynn, not Tim :+)