Wild, Wild Staff Meetings

On the first and third Tuesday of each month, we have our staff meetings here at Grace. This includes all of our church ministry staff and support staff as well as all of our administrators and office personnel of the school and the daycare. There are about 20 of us that meet these two Tuesdays each month.

A typical meeting begins with a time of sharing as we tell stories of really cool things we have seen or heard of God doing in our ministry. To me, this is the highlight of our meetings. The meetings typically then include some business areas that we have to bring everyone up to speed on and some type of devotion or training element.

Lately, though, we have done things different. About a month ago I broke the staff down into 4 groups. I gave each group one of our upcoming staff meetings to do with as they wanted. Here were the rules:

1. The purpose is to build teamwork and to add creativity to staff meetings.

2. Your group will get the final hour of an upcoming staff meeting.

3. You can plan this hour anyway that you decide, but you must all agree

4. No group leader is being assigned because the goal is to work as a team.

5. You must use the entire hour of the staff meeting you are given

6. Every person in your group must take part in that hour.

So far we have seen two groups go. The first group sent us all on a car scavenger hunt that included some “crazy” elements but also included some “ministry” elements such as inviting a stranger to church and visiting someone in a nursing home. This was fun, creative and helped to build team unity while taking us all outside the walls of our church and into the community.

The last group had us play a game that was a cross between the old TV Newlywed Game and Jeopardy. The game was designed, however, to make us brainstorm about a big community outreach we would like to do this summer when we have all of the Operation Barnabas teams with us for their orientation. It was great and it was beneficial.

This group added an additional element. They had a large display of hats. As each staff member had their turn in front, they had to pick one of the hats and wear it. Now, just try to imagine Andrew Norton, our Business Manager, wearing an old grandma’s bonnet style hat like in the story of Little Red Riding Hood; or Jay Hall, our Maintenance Director, in a hat making him look part of the “Red Hat Society.” Mercy! These are wild, wild staff meetings!