A lot has happened in the last month. I finished up my ministry in Wichita, KS (training, delegating, leaving notes and processes for the next pastor), sold our house, packed up the moving truck, and headed up to Chaska, MN. Whew!
We're mostly done unpacking on this end of things, and we're finally able to find almost everything (where is that Ergo baby carrier?).
On the work side of things, I've started meeting with Matt and Adam (the other two pastors in this new church planting project) every day. We've officially come up with a project name, applied for a Federal EIN, opened up a bank account, and have looked at office space for rent. We've been meeting people in the area and have had some great spiritual conversations with people. It seems that the people we've met are really open to talk about spiritual things!
A few notes on efficiency and effectiveness at this point:
- Working with a team is more effective and eventually more efficient. We have better ideas and better execution when we're working together. But it takes much longer to process information and get into team mode on the front end. I'm assuming that it will all be worth it as we minister in our areas of giftedness and learn not to unnecessarily duplicate effort.
- We don't have an office yet! There is no way to be really effective and efficient without room to set up office space. There's no place in my home for my books or files (or even my GTD inbox). So we've found office space that looks like it will work well (individual offices and a common work area). Now if we can just find enough money to rent it.
- We have started to realize that we can't really be effective unless we have the right priorities and direction. So we are starting out this project with extended prayer, fasting, and worship times together with our families. In fact, this weekend we are going on a spiritual retreat to kick off our listening time (40 days of prayer and fasting for clarity on our core values and mission). If you are a praying person, I would appreciate your prayers as we seek to understand God's direction for this new church plant.
- We can't be effective or efficient without communicating clearly. If we don't communicate our needs and desires, we are just setting ourselves up for roadblocks and frustration. This week we met with an area pastor from our denomination to communicate our needs and desires as a new area church. He was a little blindsided, because he hadn't heard anything about it. He didn't even know we'd moved into the area! But after a good deal of open communication, it really felt like we were on the same page. I think we will save lots of time and energy because we made the time to meet with him and communicate openly on the front end.
- Exercise! I'm making time for exercise. And it turns out it helps me to think more clearly. Who knew?
