Timing is Everything

When I first arrived at good ole L. R. Baptist I had all kinds of
ideas for ministry. I wanted to get started right away, build a youth
group, build a labyrinth, begin a contemplative prayer group, start an
outreach program to folk 40 and under, incorporate some new music,
blah, blah, blah...

But I came to the sad realization that if I wanted all of the above I had to do them all myself. This Fall after four years at LRBC
things are finally starting to come together. With the prospect of
Sunday School in dire straits people flocked to help and rescued it,
they have called people to invite their kids and just started their own
children's church (here in the northeast it is quite common to havesunday school during worship, we used to but now we have a kids church then sunday school after that).

Last night the Pastoral Relations Committee met to discuss my income package, MMBB recommended a 4.3% CPI raise. (I was thrilled to find compensation guidelines for the Lutherans, UCC, Episcopal, Methodist and Presbyterians in RI via the internet - forget about the ABC-USA every getting something like that together).

The income discussion took about all of five minutes. We spent the
remaining 55 minutes discussing evangelism, outreach, advertising, etc.
It was anexhilarating discussion that I wanted to hold four years ago.
But there we were having the conversation we needed to had - timing is
everything. Our discussion has the potential to be a real church-wide
event and one that could produce significant results.

The NYTimes this week ran a piece about a rabbi who entered a 30 year contract with the congregation, I'm not ready to enter into that type of relationship but it would be an interesting idea to say to yourself this is where I'm gonna be for the next 30 years - a bloom where your platned idea.