Simple is in...

After a very long and arduous month of ministry activity our church staff had the opportunity to get together for a staff retreat and before I write anything else let me be clear... there is no other group of people I'd rather serve with than the church ministry staff that I serve with right now! I love you guys very much... despite the fact that a couple of you (and you know who you are) continue to deny me my rightful 1st place prizes year after year at our staff retreats... but I'm not bitter...

At any rate we went to a great spot that was graciously made available to all 12 of us for a couple of days (thanks Mr. & Mrs. D...)! While were there, we as a staff had the opportunity to tackle the issue of "complexity" in our current ministry. It was absolutely refreshing!

The challenge laid out for us was to think about how we might simplify our ministries. We were not looking just for the sake of doing less but in fact accomplishing more! I know, it doesn't seem to make sense but using several principles advanced in Rainer & Geiger's, "Simple Church" we began the process of considering the issue of whether or not we've begun to over program ourselves and are on our way to becoming just another "cluttered" church!

"To know Christ fully and make Him known..." along with what is referred to as our "simple six" is to be our focus. The next several weeks as we continue to work on simplifying should be a blast! I'll keep you posted on our progress!