Whew! If I didn’t LOVE what I do, this would be a rant post where I rail about all the things I have going on in ministry that have prevented me from blogging consistently.
BUT, I love what I do! Getting to serve my church body is life-giving. In addition to my normal, weekly, youth ministry activities (including planning for summer! already?! what?!) there have been two major things taking up my time.
1. Multi-site – Our church, is in the process of replicating ourselves in a multi-site. I am super stoked to be a part of this process as we seek to further God’s Kingdom through the vehicle of the local church. To accomplish this, our weekly MLT (Ministry Leadership Team) meetings have doubled over the past month. That’s 2 half-day meetings per week! Yet, when I realize what God can/could/will do through this process, I’m elated to have a seat at the table!
2. Easter Picnic – Each year the student ministry & children’s ministry work together to pull off our annual picnic. This is no small task when you are expecting 3,000+ in attendance. Food, games, seating, music, egg hunts, gospel presentation, volunteer coordination, guest booths, parking, staging, it’s amazing how many small things come together to pull these things off. And it honestly couldn’t happen without the whole staff pitching in!
THE POINT
While these two things have taken up A LOT of my time, it has been an absolute blessing to serve our congregation. I could whine, I could complain, I could make excuses, but this is the task the Lord has entrusted to me, “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:12). And this is something I want to do not with bitter heart, but rather “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:2-3).
What are you learning with your team on multisite? I’m in it right now and I’m hungry to learn how others are making it happen.
Hey Josh! We are early in the process and plan to launch by Easter of 2015. I’ll set overhead details aside and focus on how it will effect our youth ministry. We are planning a soft start for the youth at the new site. By that I mean it will start very Small Group oriented for Sunday mornings when we launch in a school, and then transform as we move into a building (2016?). The goal is to keep a consistent identity for the students and make them feel a part of what we are doing on the main campus. This is very much and understatement, maybe we should do a podcast about this topic and bring in someone who is seasoned who we can bombard with questions! Thoughts?
That’s great you have that much time to work through it. We are moving to our third campus this Sunday for Easter. I’m learning to develop leaders and simplify our main goals to work across campuses. We are learning a lot and enjoying the challenge. Let me know what you continue to learn.
That’s awesome! It sounds like it will be quite the process, but excited to see how it will impact the kingdom and bring new people/students into the fold of gospel community!