Staff Retreat & Back to School Party

We had our first staff retreat this week. I referred to it as a "pray and play" retreat. The goal was to rest, have fun, debrief the past year and prepare ourselves, physically, mentally and spiritually for the coming year. We invited staff and families to attend.

It was a huge success in my opinion. It seemed like everyone really did relax, which is not always easy considering several of us have workaholic tendencies. We also had some really good discussions about how to prepare ourselves and how to put some spiritually displines in our lives.

We have an awesome staff at our church. We don't always agree on how we should do things. In fact our staff meetings can be pretty intense at times. But we are always unified and that unity is reflected in the rest of the church.

By the way, we accidentally double booked our retreat with a major event at our church. We were hosting a "Back to School Party" for 90 kids from low income families in our community. We collected school supplies for them and at the party we helped them pack their new backpacks with the supplies they were going to need for school.

With the execption of one, our entire staff was on the retreat during this event.

Some churches have staff that are willing to give up control and let lay leaders have ownership of ministry. And some churches have lay leaders who want to take ownership of ministry. Our church is fortunate enough to have both.

Water Wars

We have an annual tradition at our church that started about 4 or 5 years ago. The concept is simple: grill some hot dogs, hook up a bunch of sprinklers, slip-n-slides and the inflatable water slide and finish it off with a huge water gun fight.

We had our Water Wars this past Sunday afternoon. What a blast. It's great to serve in a church that is OK with having some serious fun.

Open Source Leadership

I love studying leadership models. I'm working on a sermon series for the Fall that I'm calling Open Source Leadership. If you don't know what "open source" means, look it up on Wikipedia.

I'm reading three, what I hope will be, great books on the subject of leadership:

• How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins. Jim serves as a teacher to leaders in the corporate and social sectors. The book is the result of tons of research on major companies like Circuit City, Bank of America, Motorola and Ames, and how they went from being at the top of their game to being in decline or shutting down.
• The Future of Management by Gary Hamel. Gary takes a look at some of the most innovative companies and their management styles including Google.
• Courageous Leadership by Bill Hybels. Hybels is the Lead Pastor of Willow Creek Church outside of Chicago. I had a chance to hear him speak two weeks ago and was impressed with his passion for helping others be better leaders.

Found this video on the WashingtonPost: On Leadership: Evan Wittenberg, Director of Google Leadership Development

Worship at NCC

Our family was on vacation this past week. Yesterday we worshipped at National Community Church where Mark Batterson is the Lead Pastor. I loved the simplicity of their worship service. Great music and a great message.

NCC meets in the theaters at Union Station in DC as well as four other sites in the Metro area. They have a heart for reaching their city and the world.

Mark is also the author of In A Pit With A Lion on A Snowy Day, and Wild Goose Chase. Both books are great reads. His third book, Primal is due out January 1.

God's Sovereignty

I had someone track me down after church yesterday to tell me part of their story. They're not from our area but attented with some friends. They had just gone through a bad breakup in a relationship. My sermon was "Surviving Rejection."

One of the prayers I always pray when deciding on what to preach and planning sermon series is "God you know who will be there so help me to say what you want them to hear or know."

I'm never surprised, but always amazed, when I hear stories of God answering that prayer.

Youth Camp

I'm at camp (M-Fuge) all week with our student ministry. I love youth camp. This is my 14th year at Fuge. It's always one of the year's highlights. We'll be doing ministry/mission work in the Philly area.

Our theme for the week is "Faith to Love the Faith Journey." The words we're using to guide us are "stand," "wait," "risk," "let go." Great words for any follower of Christ to get their minds and hearts around. I think if we all learned to stand for what we should, wait for God's timing, risk getting out of our comfort zones and giving up some of our own stuff, and then letting go of the things that hold us back we could turn the world upside down.

One thing I know, the 350 plus students and adults at Fuge this week, if we get our hearts and minds around those words, God will use us to turn Philly up side down.

Can't wait to see what happens.

How Do You Define Success?

I joined a six week small group for dads for the Summer. It's down at National Community Church in DC. Their Lead Pastor, Mark Batterson is leading the group. Mark is someone who has a lot of wisdom for someone in their 30's. I've followed his blog for about a year and a half and read both his books. It's great to have the opportunity to spend six weeks getting to know him and some other dads.

So here's the question we left with last night: "How do you define success as a parent." I've actually thought about that question for over ten years. I have my own definition of success that I've continued to refine since my son was born. I'd be interested in what others think success as a parent looks like.

BTW, you don't need to be a parent to respond.