Corporation Meeting

Last night we had the Corporation of the Parish (the three Wardens: Trent, Virginia, and Brendan plus the clergy) plus the Parish Administrator over for dinner and a meeting. Betsy prepared a great chicken dish and we toasted the beginning of my incumbency with champaign and many stories. It was a great opportunity for the seven of us to get to know each other better. After supper we cleared the table and got down to business--an hour and a half of hashing through agenda items. I was pleased that we managed to come to resolution on most of them. Considering that it was my first time actually chairing an entire Corporation meeting, I think it went quite well.

But I don't think that getting to resolution on items of business is really the best measure of success for these meetings. I'm more concerned with developing a culture of Christian leadership shared among the members of the corporation. The idea is that this then trickles down into the rest of the church. This is accomplished through "lay leadership development."

LLD is like exercise and healthy eating--everybody knows they are supposed to do it, but few actually do it with any kind of intentionality. I've asked a number of priests in this diocese how they do their spiritual development with their wardens. There are a few different models being used, but what's clear is that something ought to be done along these lines. So at COTM we are going to have to experiment with some possible ways of doing this. Stay tuned.

Today we had a nice intimate Eucharist to start the day. But considering the late night just before, it was no surprise that Megan and I were dragging. The Parish Administator caught a bug and came in around noon not feeling well--again, no surprise, the Ministry Team has been pushing hard.

After the Eucharist I spent time doing research on Sunday's Gospel lesson (also our text for the work-place Bible Study we lead downtown). The Bible Study itself went very well. After that I returned the church briefly and then went out again to visit a parishioner and run some random errands.

Met up with Betsy and we ran some of our own errands late into the evening. Weird how much satisfaction Home Depot and Costco runs can bring. I guess I'm domesticated...

-t