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Why I Hate Church Staff Meetings

Why I Hate Church Staff Meetings

I hate church staff meetings.

As a pastor, I hate church staff meetings that are consistently mired in the details of making events happen. I know some of you like to check your task list boxes and meet in church leadership teams to go over excel spreadsheets…but I am not that guy. Though I enjoy planning a well executed experience for people in our church community from time to time, I start to feel claustrophobic when all we do is talk about what needs happen in the next week or two.

 

I want to dream with people who inspire me.

I want to ask "What if?" questions with a team of people that I respect.

I want to lovingly argue about how we’re approaching certain aspects of ministry with a team that cares about each other.

I want to be a part of meetings where the details of making ministry happen are the result of strong theological and missiological debates. 

If the practical precedes the philosophical we will end up creating church environments that are a poor reflection of our created purpose as the Church. Our meetings should have emotion. There should be drama, laughter and sometimes even tears. As you lead your upcoming leadership team meeting, ask yourself if there is a balance between talking about what you’re doing and talking about why you’re doing it. Another filter that can help determine whether or not your meetings have the right rhythm to them is by asking yourself in the car ride there if you’re excited about going. Whether I’m leading it or not, I want to go to meetings that feel worth my time and have me thinking about them even before I get there.

One of the reasons we’ve created the Neue Quarterly is to trigger conversations among church leaders. Feel free to use the content that you find in the NQ to add further flavor to your team meetings. We’ve intentionally gone after some of the best thinkers and practitioners when it comes to leadership development within the Church. Using the NQ to enhance your leadership meetings is like having each of these authors speak directly to your team without paying the unaffordable honorariums.

What makes a leadership meeting worth your time and an experience that you want to continue to be a part of?

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