January Pastors' Retreat Update

Dr. Youssef was right on target yesterday when he said during the sermon, "Knowledge is power!" With that in mind (and believing that as much as possible everyone should have access to the latest thinking and planning) I want to update you on the pastors' most recent off-site planning day.

We gathered at my home on Thursday, January 8 to think about moving the church forward in 2015.  The day began with prayer and a devotional from John 6, the story of Christ's appearing to the disciples during the tempest on the Sea of Galilee.  Walking out to them on the water, Jesus greeted them with the words, "Don't be afraid, I AM is here."  We then looked at Colossians 1 and Revelation 1 to see the force of character that was present in the one who identified himself as I AM.  He is majestic, all-powerful, wise, kind and worthy of worship.  In our culture we have storm chasers, but Jesus is the storm tamer!  No wonder verse 21 says, "Then they were willing to take him into the boat."  We discussed what it means in our context to "willingly take him into our boat" in 2015.

Congregational Care

Next we turned our attention to the issue of congregational care.  The church survey done a year ago known as the Lawless Report recognized that many in our congregation feel disconnected from the pastoral staff.  They expressed concerns about our responsiveness to their needs and concerns about our ability to extend pastoral care.  In the past the pastors had used a tool called the Shepherd's List to contact people and keep track of their needs.  Unfortunately at some point the growth of the church made that approach unwieldy, so it's time to think of a better way to meet the needs of the congregation.  We're developing a similar system that will allow us not only to be in touch with each member of the church but to pray for everyone on the roster by name during the course of a year. We're going to work out the details in the next couple of Blue Team meetings (pastoral staff) and report back to you.

A New Meeting Schedule

Next we we discussed the weekly schedule of meetings.  We feel the need to meet weekly to pray for the needs of our congregation so that's going to be a change to our individual schedules.  We also wanted to find a more convenient time for everyone for a weekly staff devotional.  We had been meeting at 9am on Wednesday mornings, but that turned out to not be a good time for many people.  We are proposing that staff devotions be held on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month from 11:00-11:20 and that the "Green Team" meeting of pastors and and administrative assistants occur immediately after staff devotions on the fourth Wednesday of the month.  This will allow those involved in the Green Team meeting to go directly to lunch after the meeting without further disrupting their schedule.

LUNCH!!

Charlene had prepared coffee and breakfast pastries for everyone's arrival and then treated us to brats and German potato salad for lunch.  The real reason we meet at my house is so Charlene will make lunch for all of us.  (If you heard "braats" instead of "brahts" you probably haven't spent anytime in the mid-west.  Think of an oversized, high-quality hotdog and you're on the right track.  They're delicious with sauerkraut!)

Discipleship and Community

Following lunch and a 90-minute nap (just kidding!) we spent time developing a comprehensive discipleship plan that would further unite the efforts of all the ministry areas.  Again, Dr. Youssef spoke yesterday about breaking down the silos, a common illustration for a group of departments that find themselves working in the same building but not necessarily working together.  Like the various departments at Target we each have our area of specialty but we need to coordinate our efforts as much as possible so that we're efficiently using the resources God has given us and more effectively contribute to one another's success.

Our hope is to take some immediate steps to increase a sense of community at COTA while working over the course of the next few months to develop a comprehensive discipleship plan that might be launched in the fall.  Prior to our gathering, all the pastors read a book called "Growing True Disciples" by George Barna.  The Lawless Report identified a weakness in our church that Barna claims to be common to many churches; we have all the right ministries in place but with no clear plan for helping a person grow as a disciple of Christ.  Everything we're doing is good, but there's no coordination or master plan for discipleship.  Like many churches, we have the "cafeteria approach" to spiritual nourishment; once people are in the door we turn them loose to pick and choose anything they want in no particular order.  A well-balanced, healthy diet (both spiritually and physically) requires a plan.  We hope to develop a tool whereby people can assess their personal level of spiritual development -- whether a recent convert to someone ready to serve on the Vestry -- and then provide a guided menu of ministry options to help them attain the next level of spiritual growth.

WWDWBY?

All of our meetings begin with a simple question, "What would you like to have accomplished by the end of the day?" and end a review of our goals for the day.  At the top of our list of desires for this day was spiritual refreshment through time in the Word and prayer and a greater sense of unity in our purpose.  WWDWBY is an acronym for "Who will do what by when?"  Several of us left the meeting with specific responsibilities to fulfill before our next Blue Team meeting.  One of my assignments (one that will follow all our off site meetings) was to report back to you on what we accomplished during our time away.

If you have any questions, comments or ideas related to any of the things we discussed or any ideas at all about how to make us more spiritually and organizationally healthy, please send me a note.

Remember, none of us is as smart as all of us.