This is my ministry team. Oh, I have more than one. I have my staff, who I LOVE working with every day! This is my peer ministry team. They’re Children’s and Family Pastors from across the country. We all met on the internet initially by reading each other’s blogs. Then we started emailing each other which led to phone calls, facebook groups and all kinds of other things. Over the last two years, we’ve become good friends and a great place for encouragement and ideas. I think everyone of us have walked away with ideas from our group and have implemented them in our own churches. Together, we’re getting better at what we do and together, we’re serving more kids than any one of us would alone.
Two weeks ago at Orange, the five of us met in person for the first time. What a blast! We hung out a lot. It was like a family reunion. If you saw us at Orange, I hope you didn’t think we we’re stand off-ish or exclusive at all, we were just excited to all be together.
Why am I writing all of this? It’s my challenge to you. Outside of your staff, do you have anyone else that challenges you to be better professionally? I went nine years without this in my life. My only regret in ministry is that I would have had this earlier. So, what are you waiting for?
In the picture:
Jonathan Cliff
Matt McKee
Gina McClain
Sam Luce
Me
Great picture! Hope you all get to hang out again one day soon.
I couldn’t have put that better. It is such an honor to be a part of this group.
I agree with Kenny. To the CMO audience… who will be in your picture 2 years from now?
It’s great that you guys have made such a great connection, not just for you personally and your individual ministries but your collaboration with each other has overflowed to influence and bless blog and twitter readers all over the planet!
Sarah Thompson’s last blog post..NZ Music Month – Kingston
anyone else worried about the bottles of Bacardi in the background?
jonathan’s last blog post..Lessons Learned
I love that…so fitting…right in front of a case of fancy looking alcoholic beverages! Nice 😉
princessjes’s last blog post..THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!!
Sarah, something you said reminded me of something one of us said while we were in Atlanta (I can’t remember who) and it really impacted me. Between the five of us, we serve thousands of kids and families. By working together, we are better at what we do and our impact is far greater than any one of us working alone. Each of my friends here are making a difference in the lives of families here at Gateway in Austin. Likewise, each of us are also impacting families in Oklahoma, New York, Ohio and West Teas (yeah, it’s like another state). Oh, and becasue we all blog, we’re sharing our ideas with hundreds of others (and they’re refining the ideas beyond what we come up with) and the impact multiplies. It’s amazing really!
Kenny, you’re a giant Texan… seriously, I’m pretty sure you are like 7 feet tall. Either that, or Matt McKee is a tiny man. 😉
Anthony Prince’s last blog post..1st Church of Familarity. Anytown, USA
Honored to be counted as a friend to so many fine folk. It is such a God thing, I am consistently grateful for.
The reality that God has, is and will use each of us to impact the shape of ministry in each of our individual churchs is very sobering really.
Anthony, I am 5’7″ for the record.
To everyone else,
It truly is my honor to be apart of this God thing and it is a God thing. Here’s the deal though. We aren’t special. We don’t have the corner on collaboration. We want nothing more than to see people be used by God in a similar way.
Thank you guys for impacting Cincinnati. You have more than you will ever know.
Matt McKee’s last blog post..Daily Twitter Summary