Woolsey Life

Can be pretty intimidating when what you are hitting are things you are comfortable with.  By nature I am a “get it all done myself kind of guy” because “at the end of the day no one will care enough to do it the way I think it should get done.”  I have preached about handing off keys in ministry and have done so to an extent.  God is making me do it for real now.  Its good though, I can see how this is going to be a good thing for me and for the ministries of Impact Church.  I am starting to see through the pressures in my own life how I have held onto keys for too long.  I must admit, I am still slow to ask too much of people because I want to be sensitive to their lives and the work load they bear without me coming along.  However, since my time is becoming more and more of a rare commodity I am going to start laying things before people and seeing what the leaders around me will take up.  My job needs to be less about the work and more about the leaders that are carrying the burden for the work.  I need to be an encourager and I need to be inspiring them to find meaning in what they are asking their teams to do.  I need to be their pastor…God has been pushing me into this role faster than I had thought would happen 4 years ago and behold, here it is already.

So I confess here publicly that the systems that I have put into place are holding this ministry back.  As I walk around breaking them I am praying that God will be moving in the lives of those that will be thrust into leadership.  It happened for me as result of a need, its time to allow the Holy Spirit to move through me and into the lives of the emerging leaders around me so they can experience the same empowerment.

Pray for me…its not going to be easy.

Tonight we had a heavy staff meeting (the force of gravity has increased here in the future) and we called it around 8pm and decided to hang out on the patio. As you are well aware, the yard is on the home stretch and looks complete at a glance. Jeff, Vince, Micah and Brent were standing on the walkway in the yard and looking at the grass and had observed the handfull of weeds that have developed in one are of the lawn. Vince commented that if he were I he would be pretty mad. I told them that the reasons the weeds got a foothold was because the grass there wasn’t very thick and full yet. Vince asked if I was going to get on my hands and knees and pull out every weed by hand. I explained to him that I would have to do that for now but my goal is to not go on hand weeding. I explained that the best way to prevent weeds is to do the things that strengthen the grass because the grass will choke out the weeds when it it thickens and grows deep roots. We all looked at each other and remarked that there is a Sunday message in that comment.

Once again, God demonstrates how he has every intention of speaking to me about ministry and my own spiritual life through my growing passion as a gardener.

Hey, I’m back! I have been thinking a lot about my role at Impact Church and how it is evolving and how God will use me in the way he needs me here. As a side effect of that thinking I have given a lot of thought to the tools that we use at Impact Church. Well the list is long and since lately I have been contacted by several pastors and administrators asking my opinion on things church admin I would put it all down here in a blog post mini series. So here is the outline, I will get started on it imediately but this is what you can look forward to reading, or just clicking ‘mark as read’ if this isn’t your thing.

1. Church Management Software
2. Church Calendars
3. Team Communication
4. Event Management
5. Assimilation Management
6. Ministries

I got a call this afternoon that our high school youth group needed an extra driver for a field trip they were taking.  Kyle had 30 kids there and they were going to the Escondido Iceoplex to play some broomball.  The night was a success and there was only one broken nose.  Doing good considering the potential for fractured skulls.

This year Impact Church is going to the Colorado River for its summer family camp. We are working pretty hard to get the costs to something manageable so that lots more people can come. But sometimes manageable doesn’t just mean costs, sometimes its scheduling. Every modest sized church I have ever been a part of (including Impact up to this point) that does vacation stuff like going out to the river or desert or even fishing has done one thing that excludes so many. They go during the week! I don’t know why other churches have done that but I know we have always leaned toward going outside the weekend because we wanted to preserve the importance of Sunday worship. This year, we are switching gears and will be utilizing the talents of our ministry team differently by having trips like this on the weekend so that normal people with regular jobs can go.

Now the application here is this: we are going to have programming at the river Friday, Saturday & Sunday. We have a team ministry model at Impact Church so there are FOUR pastors! That means that we should be able to do this. Here is our plan. Friday and Saturday we will have all four pastors out and Saturday night Jeff & Travis will leave so that Church happens as scheduled and expected on Sunday at Thompson Middle School. Vince and I will remain at the river with some of our oversight and we will have church Sunday morning at the campground. This is a cool step for us because we are not a large church and usually we employ our entire ministry staff every Sunday. This is a step toward growth for this ministry and hopefully a step in our reach into our community.

If you live around Murrieta and would like to join us, you are welcome to come along - this is an open event. Go to the Impact Church website and click on the Soak 2008 image or you can click on the image in this post, it takes you to the same place.