Our staff meets together about once a month for a time of teaching and celebration…and yesterday was off the flippin’ charts!
We usually begin by me asking the question, “What is it that has happened in your area of ministry this month that pumps you up and that everyone in this room needs to know?”
I kid you not—for 30 minutes we heard story after story—and many times we were all moved to tears. I kept sitting there thinking, “I wish people could witness what I am seeing right now!” Bottom line—our staff is in love with Jesus and people…and are willing to do all that they can to connect individual people to Him.
Usually after we do a time of sharing I teach some sort of leadership lesson and then cast vision as to what is coming up…but not today…
Several months ago God really put it on my heart to ask Steven to come and talk to our staff about church and leadership…so I asked him to come down from the Queen City and bring some staff with him. He rolled in this morning with about 15-20 staff members…and we invited Gary up from the metropolis of Canton to join the party as well. (He brought around five peeps with him.)
We didn’t have a leadership talk—WE HAD CHURCH! Holy Cow! Furtick brought the house down. He said early on, “I didn’t come to give a talk…I came to preach,” and did he ever. The dude talked for about an hour and NO ONE even knew how long he had gone.
I would go into what he said…but I just can’t right now. It’s almost like one of those, “you had to be there” events. I will say this—Jesus totally used him to encourage and fire up the staff…and I think NewSpring Church is better because of God using Steven to challenge and bless us.
After that all of the staffs had lunch together and then Gary, Steven and I went to my office and sat around for four hours and talked about life and leadership. To be honest—it was one of the best days I’ve had in quite a while. We opened up and poured out to one another what we were wrestling with, what we were learning and what we felt like was in store for the church as a whole. We asked each other some pretty hard questions…and at the end of the day we all agreed that it felt like one big therapy session! :-)
When they were leaving I said, “Guys, we need to do this again!” And guys…I mean that!
It hit me when we were sitting in that room—no matter what the age is of the pastor, no matter what the size is of the church…all pastors basically wrestle with the same issues…and many times the only person who can understand a pastor is a pastor. My advice to pastors is try your best to hook up with other pastors on a regular basis for a time just to talk and get real with one another…it’s awesome.
By the way…the only way you can do that is if you are secure enough to sit in a room and allow people to ask you hard questions without getting your feelings hurt. Pastors need to spend less time competing with one another and begin figuring out how we can support and encourage one another…and today was a PRIME example of that. Pastors need to form relationships with other pastors whom they can trust! (Which IS tough and will take work…but it needs to be done!)
On the way home Tony shot me a text and told me we only have 90 spots for Unleash—DANG!
Last night I had leftover chicken pot pie with my wife…and then Charisse and I went to visit my dad for a little while. After that it was LOST (best show on TV) and then bed. GREAT DAY!