Monday...Monday

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours with our church's leadership team and finance committee. We are in the beginning stages of developing our 2010 budget. To begin, I asked four questions: 1. What would a guest attending for the first time say our top two priorities as a church are? 2. What kind of church do we believe God wants us to be? 3. To be that kind of church what kind of pastor, leaders, and members do we need? and 4. Are we willing to make the necessary changes?
There was a rousing discussion of the first question. Interesting observations from those who attended. The second and third question need some more work. On Nov 15 I'll meet again with our leadership team and discuss those questions. Part of the answer we talked about yesterday involves focusing on our small groups. I believe that we will engage with people who don't know Jesus most effectively at that level- not at the level of our 11:00am morning worship service. Part of our challenge is to revitalize and reorganize our small groups into viable outreach and ministry teams where unsaved, unchurched and dechurched (that's a term I read in an interview with Perry Noble recently) can become engaged with the gospel. So, lots of work ahead. Changing my role is hard. I struggle almost every Sunday with the desire to be the funnel for all information about what's happening in this and that family's life. I struggle with wanting to be in control so that everything happens orderly and efficiently during the morning worship service (which always seems to fall apart no matter how hard I try to manage and arrange things....)
Of course, changing the role and assignment of our leaders will not be easy either. Asking them to think differently about their small group/class will take some time and create some adjustment issues. Fortunately a group has been appointed to begin working on defining what it means to be a member of our church. Another group will soon be working on how to effectively greet everyone who drives in the parking lot and walks in the door.
So, change- in the weather, the leaves are dropping, the temp is dropping, and the rain will begin to fall...- change is the only constant in my life! Thank God for His unchanging nature!