Last Saturday the CMC Leadership Team had a retreat.  For newer folks, LT is the church board. 

An annual board retreat is part of a church structure model
we’ve been moving toward in the last couple years.  We’re taking our cues from Dan Hotchkiss’s
book Governance
and Ministry: Rethinking Board Leadership.  He emphasizes the centrality of 1) setting policy
and 2) visioning for a church board.

This was a visioning retreat – our attempt to listen for the
ways the Spirit is at work among us and direct our collective attention toward
a few primary areas.  Practicing
awareness!  Melonie Buller wrote a piece
about this in the Lamplighter that went out this week. 

In short, LT will be guiding the congregation in
conversation over next year regarding how we respond to growth, how we might better form leaders among us, and discernment for how we focus our energy beyond our walls.

In addition, LT is asking our Commissions – and everyone – to
think intentionally about the many dimensions
of sanctuary, and how we address the needs
and gifts of all ages among us.

Some of this will lead to the making of goals and plans, as
organizations tend to do, and some of this will better prepare us to be ready
and open to the unforeseen new movements of the Spirit. 

Joel