Waiting for the Roller Coaster to Drop

After talking about it for months, our first All-Committee Meeting is just around the corner!  Are you excited?  Worried?  Curious?  Unconcerned?  Relieved?

For me it feels like the initial ascent on a roller coaster.  Not the momentum-driven cart ride of adrenaline and heart palpitations… No, I am talking about the part before that.  I am talking about when you are buckled in, safety has been checked by the attendant, the ride is moving… but slowly.  You can hear the clink of machinery ratcheting your cart higher and higher while the anticipation for the eventual drop continues to build.  As an adult, I have come to understand that anticipation is a key part to the overall experience.  If there is no wait time, no time to prepare, no time for excitement to build, the amount of fun that is experienced diminishes.
While I do not expect our All Committee Meeting to be as thrilling as an amusement park ride, here is what I do expect:

There will be food!
Everyone - and I mean EVERYONE - is invited to stay for a time of fellowship as we eat lunch together.

We will begin the meeting with general updates.
The joint part of the meeting will include a Session Update, Treasurer’s Update, and Pastor’s Update.  Anyone curious about how the congregation’s finances are doing or wants to know what Session is working on is welcome to stay and listen.

The three committees will break into their individual meetings.
The three standing committees will break to different locations to conduct their individual meetings.  If you are not on a committee but have something you would like to bring to a committee’s attention, you are welcome to join them in their meeting.

The three committees might spend the whole first meeting simply figuring out what they are supposed to be doing.
Because this is our first time in this format, it is okay if all our committees accomplish is figuring out who is doing what and making a plan for the following meeting.

Things might be a bit bumpy this first time.
I do not expect everything to go perfectly the first time we do them.  We will expect that something is going to go wrong.  We will take note and fix it for next time.

Someone will still not understand how to do something. 
Transitions and change are difficult things to navigate.  Even after we do this once, there will still be uncertainty and misunderstanding of who does what.  We will take it one day at a time.
I have been working with Session and Nominations for months on this transition. It will not be perfect and there will be bumps in the road. Still, I fully believe that we are ready to take the plunge.
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Blessings,
Pastor Chris