Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Working One Day a Week: Part 6 - Tuesday


As in the case with all my other work days, Tuesday starts off with me personal time followed by a morning of appointments and meetings. On the first Tuesday of each month I lead a meeting for our full staff. This includes all pastors, ministry leaders, support and maintenance staff, as well as the administrative staff of Lititz Christian School and MorningStar Childcare. At this meeting we take the first part to share how we have seen God working in our ministry over the previous month. I then lead the staff in a teaching time that is designed to be a spiritually educational and motivational time. A couple other times a month I also am part of a Managers and Ministry Leaders meeting on Tueday mornings that is led by Tim Auld, our Executive Pastor.

From a study perspective, I usually try on Tuesdays to literally type out a manuscript of my sermon for that coming Sunday. Now, obviously, I don’t preach by reading from a manuscript but this exercise helps me to really think through what I want to say and to prioritize the main points to fit within the timeframes I have. I will then read through that manuscript several times over the remainder of that week so that I become very familiar with the content of the message.

Though they don't report directly to me, once a month I also am starting to take an hour to meet with each ministry leader one-on-one in order to give them an opportunity to share with me anything that is on their heart – victories, goals, frustrations, needs, etc. These ministry leaders include Doug Kegarise, our Pastor of Children and Student Ministries; Jeremiah Kleylein, our Director of Student Ministries; Steve Burghart, our Pastor of Connections, and Whitie Willard, our Care Pastor. We will also add to this list our new Director of Children’s Ministry who starts in August. Some of these meetings are scheduled for Tuesdays.

Every Tuesday I also spend time in a one-on-one meeting with Tim Auld, our Executive Pastor. Tim is the one who pretty much runs the church side of our ministry while Rick Bernhardt runs the educational side of our ministry. This is a time for Tim to give me updates and for he and I to talk through any other issues, strategies or decisions that are in the works.

I also take time on Tuesday afternoons to send an e-mail to anyone who was a first time guest the following Sunday. By Tuesday I have received a copy of those cards and send a quick e-mail thanking people for checking out Grace Church and encouraging them to visit with us again.

Once a month on Tuesday night we have our Worship Design Team meeting. I talked about this a little bit back on my blog about Monday. This team and meeting is under the direction of David Felty, our Worship Arts Director. It involves several key creative people in our ministry and the job of this team is to brainstorm creative elements for our upcoming worship services. This team plans two months ahead. The meeting starts with evaluating past services. Then I take the team deeper into the week to week direction I plan to go with the sermons for the month we are planning. We then brainstorm all kinds of creative ideas. After much brainstorming we decide which elements we will focus in on and assign each of those elements to one of the team members to make happen. This is one of my most favorite meetings each and every month.

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