I hate meetings. I don’t use the word hate lightly. Loathe. Detest. Fake an injury to avoid them kind of revulsion. Meetings suck the life out of my soul. Unfortunately, in my vocation, meetings are often mandatory. Even worse, most of the meetings I go to, I lead. To make matters worse—I hate me for leading a terrible meeting. My Monday is a cycle of self-loathing.
Not long ago I read a series of articles on creating meetings you’d want to attend. I was intrigued. So I decided to make a single corporate change in 2019—create a team meeting that I like . . . that would help me . . . feed me . . . inspire me. I wanted to craft a meeting that didn’t feel like two hours of spiritual waterboarding.
So for those of you who care about such things (the eight of you), I want to share the new format we have been using on Monday mornings. The old format for our team meeting was a fairly typical, mind-numbing church staff meeting format: Evaluate the weekend (attendance, finances, volunteers, etc . . . ), touch base on pastoral care (who is in need), and take a quick look at the church calendar (what’s coming up). The problem was that most (80% or so) of what was communicated at our weekly team meeting could be done via email. So I decided to make a change and create a meeting that mattered . . . to me. Everything that could be done via email would be done via email. Now, as it turns out, we have significant time for substance.
We’re still beta-testing this new format, but currently it operates this way.
WEEK 1: TEAM VALUE/DOCTRINAL FUN/PERSONAL PRAYER/CHURCH LIFE
We spend 15 minutes to talk through one of our nine team values. I include examples and ask a few questions. This isn’t brain surgery. I’m just trying to keep our team culture in front of us. Then we spend 15 minutes on what I call Doctrinal Fun. This is a nerdy way of keeping our staff grounded in the orthodox values and underpinnings of the church. I research, write, and then outline a doctrine each week for us to talk about (handouts included). It may not sound like fun for you . . . but I don’t care. This is my meeting! Next we spend about 15 minutes in focused prayer for five families in our church. We are systematically working through our membership. Lastly, we spend 30-45 minutes on church life, pastoral needs, and calendaring.
WEEK 2: TEAM VALUE/DOCTRINAL FUN/NOTES/CHURCH LIFE
Week two is identical to week one except that instead of personal prayer, we spend 15 minutes writing postcards to families in our church community.
WEEK 3: TEAM VALUE/DOCTRINAL FUN/LEADERSHIP PODCAST/CHURCH LIFE
Week three is identical to weeks one and two except that instead of prayer or note writing we spend 15 minutes listening to a leadership podcast. There are tons of leadership podcasts that fit this 15-minute metric so we have lots to choose from. My hope is to help enlarge our leaders’ capacities by encouraging us to think differently. And that only happens as we hear from leaders better than me (which is most). A few podcasts that I recommend are Andy Stanley’s Leadership Podcast, Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast, Leadercast, and Global Leadership Podcast.
WEEK 4: NO TEAM MEETING.
That’s right. Sometimes the best meeting is no meeting at all. It’s a sabbath rest of meetings.
That’s it. So far I love Monday mornings. I love that our team is growing in grace and doctrine and leadership. I love that it’s not a throw away. Even more than that, I love that we’re doing it together. I’d love to know what changes you’ve made to your meetings and how it helped.
