The Session’s September meeting was lively, even exciting. Wait a minute! A Session meeting? Aren’t those the meetings that go on for four or five hours with everyone arguing over just about everything?
Actually, a typical Session meeting is a wonderful mixture of community, faithfulness, dedication, and more than a little laughter. Over the past three years we have reduced the number of meetings we hold, shifted more of our routine business to e-mails, and kept meeting time to about two hours. We also enjoy a meal together and share joys and concerns.
We are gradually shifting our focus away from reports from Ministry Teams and other routine business so that we can spend more time on our primary calling: our service as spiritual leaders of the church. The Session is called “to lead the congregation continually to discover what God is doing in the world and to plan for change, renewal and reformation under the Word of God.” That’s exciting work grounded in discernment of God’s will.
We spent most of our September meeting talking about the future of our church, thinking about where God might be calling us. We broke into 3 groups, each charged with thinking about what they believe our church would look like one year, two years, and three years into the future. The groups spent time responding to questions I had given them to guide their conversation as they talked about what worship might be like at the end of 2010, 2011, or 2012, whether we’ll see changes in our Christian Education program, our Early Learning Center, or in other ministries.
All three groups saw an Associate Pastor in our future, sooner rather than later. Each of the groups also saw a continuing expansion of creative ideas in worship. We were confident our Early Learning Center would continue to provide its vital ministry to the community. And we also saw an expansion in Christian Education opportunities in the years ahead.
The Session will still maintain its responsibility for oversight of the Ministry Teams, the Board of Deacons, the Stephen Ministers, and other groups within the church. We are transitioning away, however, from having Elders chair Teams in order to provide Elders with more time to focus on their calling to church-wide leadership.
In the months ahead we will continue to evolve how we do our work as the Session as we seek to discern God’s will for our church. But if you should walk by Room 5 while we are meeting, don’t be surprised if you hear laughter and see smiles.
Grace & peace,
Pastor Skip
