It seems to be cool in the leadership realm to crack on meetings, to talk about how unproductive they are, to say that if you are in meetings that you aren’t actually accomplishing anything…to try to find out how to spend less time in meetings.
Sorry, you’re not going to find that on this site…because, I actually love meetings. (I have three scheduled meetings per week usually.) I love them because…
#1 - I love the people I am in the meetings with! (Lots of people don’t like meetings because they don’t like the people in the meeting…which, if that is the case then I would say your problem isn’t the meeting…it’s the people! AND…if you are trying to lead a church with people you do not like to spend time with then you have a much bigger problem than being in that meeting!)
#2 - I love to have my ideas challenged, discussed and affirmed. I don’t think it is a wise idea for what I call “the Moses syndrome” to dominate the church landscape, you know, the leader walks on top of the mountain, downloads the vision and the comes and gives it to the people to carry it out. Instead…I think when a leader has an idea that he really does believe is from God…he needs to gather his top people around him to discuss and pray through it…because, if its dumb they can talk him out of it…and if its great then they can make improvements on it! Either way the meeting sets the whole thing up for a win.
#3 - I love to hear about what is happening in other areas of ministry. Our meeting times are not just times where we push through an agenda and try to get things accomplished…we celebrate wins AND talk about issues that are impacting particular areas of ministry.
Maybe I’m crazy…but…I don’t think meetings are as bad as some have made them out to be…at least the ones I am in. As I’ve said earlier I love what I’ve been called to do and who I’ve been called to do it with…I think that makes a huge difference when it comes to meetings.