You Don't Have to be Accurate to Draw

Check this video out. This is what I do when I craft my sermons (although I'm not nearly as good as this guy:)

MILTON GLASER DRAWS & LECTURES from C. Coy on Vimeo.

Budget Meetings You Can Look Forward To

Last week, we had the best budget meeting ever!

We arrived at a balanced budget, every person left with unity of thought, and all our finances connected to the vision of the church.

How?

Every person accountable for a line of the budget provided their 2010 figures to the Treasurer ahead of time. Making no adjustments to the figures, the Treasurer compiled the numbers and brought the first draft of the budget to the meeting.

At the meeting, the budget was projected on the wall (side note: it's frustrating to me to have paper copies shuffling of papers, don't know what line item people are talking about...if it's projected, you can point to what you're talking about.)

We had a dialogue and cut figures and came up with ways to balance the budget.

Then came the fun part...

In order to balance the budget, all of us had to cut out funding in certain areas and had to leave some items unfunded. But that doesn't mean we ignored those items.

We took out large sheets of paper and each of us wrote down a personal wish list of items that we would like funded for 2010. Then, each person got 5 stickers. They could use their 5 stickers to vote for any item on any wish list but they could only vote for only 1 item on their own list.

We compiled all the items that got votes and ended up with 10 items. Each person took the list of 10 items and ranked them 1 to 10 (1 = lowest priority and 10 = highest priority). We added up all the votes for every item and found that there were 2-3 top priority items that everyone agreed that needed to be done.

Now, when God blesses us with more than we budgeted for and when donors come to us to fund projects outside the budget, the whole team (not just me) has the same answer on how that money gets spent.

I can't tell you what our top 3 items are for 2010 (that wouldn't be fair to our church) but I can tell you that this process broke down the silos of ministry and created a unity of vision like none other!

Texas Sized Fair

Wow! My family and I had a great time at the Texas State Fair a few weeks ago. It is GINORMOUS and a lot of fun!

Great fried food! I didn't try the fried butter, but...

Mentoring

I remember in my High School days a leadership event that harkened back to the 1970's for a process to multiply leaders. It was:

I do

I do, you watch

You do, I watch

You do

The problem is, it doesn't capture active participation from both parties and it doesn't reproduce itself.

When I attended THE NINES, here is a modification of that process that answers both limitations:

I do, you watch

I do, you help

You do, I help

You do, I cheer you on

You do and someone else watches

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Is this more effective? How have you seen this in action (or not)?

Permission to Speak Freely

This website

http://www.permissiontospeakfreely.com/

asks a great question:

"What is the one thing you feel you can't say in church?"

Even though this is geared for laypeople, I believe this is also a great question for Pastors because I believe there are some things I can't say in church either.

I wonder what it would look like to have total openness and authenticity in church. Kinda scary but so freeing too!