staff retreat, part 2, plus an Annabelle bonus

I don’t know what your experience has been with staff retreats, but you really ought to join our staff.  We’re far from perfect, but we have a great time together, are always learning, and constantly challenged to be ready to talk about where God is moving in our lives.  That’s good stuff right there.

The main purpose of our retreat was to carve out some dedicated time to work on 3 big issues that we defined as important for Calvary at this point in time.  We had the staffers prioritize their topical preferences and divided into 3 sub-groups to work on the following: Communication, Assimilation, and Leadership Development.  We spent most of the last 2 days praying, thinking, and talking about how we can grow and improve these areas at Calvary.  Of course, there was time for shooting pool, tossing a football, and walking around Woodward built in.

This afternoon, our group (leadership development) approached the topic from a different point of view, which was pretty helpful.  We’d built a really good (and long) list of general leadership qualities, but most of them seemed to apply to every leader at every church we could imagine.  Dan pointed out that Patrick Lencioni calls these “permission to play” characteristics–in order for anyone to be identified as a leader, these qualities are needed/evident.  We wanted to identify the qualities that a leader needs to have/develop in order to be successful at Calvary, those things that are unique to how we want to live and lead.  After a good bit of discussion, we think we narrowed the list down to about 5 pivotal characteristics.

Want to take a guess at what they are?

I’ll have to follow up with a post later to reveal what we land on, because I’m not sure that we’re ready for the big reveal.  And I don’t know that we have figured out how we are/plan to help people grow in those areas just yet!

The Annabelle bonus:  Kim took AB to Wal-mart today to do a little grocery shopping, and Annabelle wanted to buy some gifts for her teachers (Thursday is Teacher Appreciation Day, btw).  They were looking at nail polish when Annabelle spied a package of little stickers to adorn one’s freshly painted fingernails.  Who doesn’t like fingernail stickers, right?  She’s been learning about money, has been saving all her money ever since becoming a Sublett, and knows exactly how much cash she has on hand at all times, even down to the penny.  Kim loves to buy gifts; that’s her love language.  But we’ve been trying to teach our kids the value of a dollar, so she told Annabelle that if she wanted the stickers, she could spend her own money to buy them.  Annabelle looked at the price tag, asked a clarifying question about the total purchase price, then put the stickers back on the rack.  She announced to Kim that she was saving her money “to go get the boys from Africa.”

*stac pauses to clear the lump in his throat*

Does she get the adoption picture?  Maybe not totally, but I think she understands how much of a priority this is for our family!