February 29, 2024
A Look Behind the Leadership Curtain
Our staff met Thursday evening through Friday, then our council joined us Friday evening through Saturday lunch. I hope you might enjoy an “op ed” piece this week (as opposed to a report) from one who was blessed to be there.
• Thankfully, our Lead Pastor planned and led the events. Other than a “covid year” interruption this the 33rd year he has done so. That fact alone supports the hypothesis that these type of retreats can support healthy church growth.
• Pastor John didn’t do that alone, and he would be quick to say that. Staff led portions of the retreats and coordinated facility and meal planning. Every gathering was a “team” event.
• Despite working around their personal schedules and family crises, work travel and health issues, 100% of your staff and council attended, including those four council members elected just a few weeks ago.One purpose of retreats is to “get on the same page” and that is so much easier when everyone is present. And we were.
Staff Retreat
• Staff clarified with each other what it is that each of us does. Or think we do. Or see each other doing. There was just a ton of affirmation shared; I was blessed to be included. We finished that first evening socially together, which was easy after learning again how important each person is to the ministry at Prince of Peace.
• A professional spiritual director was with us most of the day using a tool called the enneagram. We completed the tool online before coming, and then together discovered so much about what “our individual style” means about ourselves and each other. It got deep, in a good way. Not all of us (ok, me!) like being typed or sharing intimately, but by the end of the day a diverse staff team offered individual prayer blessings to one another. Priceless learning.
Council Retreat
• Our new council received their “holy council notebooks” and all of us (staff, experienced council, new council, pastors) reviewed an orientation about the council’s role in a church of this size.
• It wasn’t new material. Which is a very good thing. Expectations don’t change willy nilly. Our “prudent student pastor,” Vicar Jennie, who led throughout the retreat as well, gathered another tool for her pastoral leadership toolbox.
• Friday evening, we did some team building games, and then “practiced” joyful community with the ancient rites of card playing, libations and laughter.
• Saturday we discussed a book we all were given and read prior to the retreat (Sebastian Junger’s Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging. Not at all a churchy book, but we lifted up many implications on being the tribe we want to be right now.)
• And then we had our monthly council meeting, which got some business done, but was big on practicing our newly elected roles and rules of order.
I offer this “opinion page” this month to let you know what I saw and felt, namely that we are blessed to have (and in my case to be small part of) a deeply, talented and committed staff and council.
The 12th chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians was woven devotionally throughout the retreats. Perhaps you’ll be able to take some time to read it as well; it’s all plain spoken truth about what it means to be the Body of Christ. In other words, good affirming stuff.
I was blessed to see it in action again last weekend with our church leaders: “Now there are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of services but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” (I Corinthians 12:4-7)
I pray you know how valuable you are, how uniquely gifted by God you are, how integral part of the Body of Christ you are! So much of the “common good” this church is about is based on that truth. That’s leadership truth I relearned last weekend, but it is also life giving to each and every member of our tribe.
Pastor Jim Wilson