the G sides

Yesterday – all day planning meetings for upcoming sermon series. Very good, enjoyed it but exhausting.

I love the way we plan series here at Grace. Every ministry director is in on the process. Part of the process is always going on as we are always ‘sniffing’ what is going in the body. What do we need? What is God doing? What are the whispers of the Spirit?

A couple of weeks ago, I sent an email out to the crew (currently 3 of us – children’s and worship) and elders with a list of ideas. These ranged from topical approaches to book studies. Elders shot back their list, we had our list and lo and behold this time they matched up. We try to only tackle 2 series at a time.

We take the next couple of weeks just marinating on the 2 topics.

Then we lock the doors. For us that was yesterday. We started at 8, had lunch brought in and by 2 we had all the way until March 2007 ‘roughed in.’ Now we marinate on it some more for a couple of weeks.

It’s hard to list all the reasons why the we do it is good. First, it’s community based. If God’s called you to serve as a minister, you’ve got something to bring to the table. Second, it’s really not about the sermon. It’s about music, drama, life group discussions, art, testimonies – it opens up the whole realm of worship planning. Third, it’s a great time for the team to pray and really sync all the ministries up to go in the same direction.

Lastly, it gives us the freedom to change. It’s a lot easier to change if a plan is in place.

Sounds crazy, but it isn’t. Not having a plan stresses everything. You start worrying about the deadline as opposed to what God is telling you to do. If He’s silent, work the plan. He’ll let you know if you are off. Just keep listening and don’t be so married to your plan it becomes the golden calf.

At any rate – we enter the marinate phase now and we’ll see what happens.

[tags]sermon planning, worship planning[/tags]