Do you weep in staff meeting today?

I grew up in church. I'm not a PK (preacher's kid) but close. When I think about the many churches I've either personally attended or observed, on the whole, I don't get the sense of a group of leaders who sit and are so overwhelmed by the goodness of God, or on the other hand, so honest about the struggles of life, that they'll spend time in staff meeting thanking God or fervently praying, so much so that everyone is in tears. Yet that is what staff was like today. I don't want you to think it's like that all the time, but...what if it was? I think it would mean God is at work. He's at work anyway, but I think we were overjoyed at seeing how our work has paid off, that God showed up and business was done in people's hearts. We all talked about the good things we noticed about yesterday's church services. And at the same meeting shared our struggles.

One of the other things I liked was the accolades I received from everyone regarding my job so far. I put a lot of hard work in the last two weeks, and it has paid off, benefitting the church and our staff in many ways. I look foward to putting more systems in place. I never really learned in seminary about some of the business side of running a church. We never talked at all about 403b's, corporate filings, payroll, human resources, office management, systems for different programs, even how to structure your church around a discipleship process. Most churches don't even have a clear discipleship process. At Grace, we are in a stage of developing these systems and processes, getting our house in order as we simultaneously look for the next step, as our purpose statement says ("helping people take their next step toward Christ" [TM] Just kidding about the trademark, but still don't plagarize).