Five Big Rocks

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The big rocks of my summer are falling into place in a flurry of activity. Several weeks ago, a good friend and mentor told me to list my top ten priorities and then narrow them down. I came up with five that have been the focus of my summer (aside from just having some fun). Having them listed and standing out from all other on-going projects helped keep them on the front burner, and it's exciting to see progress along the way.

  • Five Oaks At-a-Glance: A booklet that gives an overview of our ministry year and opportunities for fun, growth, getting connected, etc. We're doing it only for the Woodbury Campus this fall, but we'll develop one for Hudson come January. At-a-Glance is designed to be a momentum builder for our whole congregation and a guide for newcomers, clearly laying out next steps in getting involved. I hope to have it ready by the second weekend in September.
  • GroupFinder: GroupFinder is an online database for small group ministry. It helps new folks find a small group at Five Oaks and is a tool for communicating, evaluating and connecting within our small groups and between groups and the small groups ministry leadership. The small group leaders are currently updating their group information and I can't wait for everyone to see this thing work. It's really cool.
  • Hudson Campus Leadership: Brian Burquest has done an incredible job leading Hudson as interim Campus Pastor. Brian's tenure ends October 1. Steve Haines has been a great gift in worship for the summer. This is his last Sunday. I would love to say that we have the team in place, but we don't yet. However, I fully expect to have a Campus Pastor in place by December 1. By combining it with adult ministries over both campuses, we feel we can stick our necks out now and bring someone in full-time to oversee adult ministries (including small groups) and to be the long-term Hudson pastor. We'll soon be announcing the search and introducing the search team made up of members from both campuses. We are still working on the worship leadership front as well, and I hope we can offer more specific news soon.
  • Leadership Development: One of my growing priorities is leadership development. I'll be teaching an advanced leadership class on Tuesday nights this fall at the Woodbury campus. Information will be in the worship program. Leadership Community will be a huge factor in future leadership development. We launch that on September 13. And I'll be using the LPI (Leadership Practices Inventory) assessment tool and development process (developed by Kouzes and Posner) with the staff leadership team this fall. The material just arrived today.
  • Performance Plans: This is a yearly thing we started with staff last year and we're still working on our plans for this ministry year. They'll soon be done and will be reviewed regularly in our scheduled meetings.