Annual Meetings

I just participated in my ninth annual meeting here in Prince Albert.

Today I feel like I"m hosting a hangover.

Oh the meeting went well, but Annual Meetings can be quite the little pressure points, for a pastor and a church. For me, it"s where I communicate my productivity for the previous year. I try to give a sense of where my time went and what I invested in. Were my/our goals accomplished, how has God led us and where do I think He is leading us in this coming year.

As a church, our approach to setting direction and trying to hear God is that we work to discern God"s leading and direction for us, together. It"s not that just I discern that or a small group of us does that, we desire to hear God, together. So our annual meeting is a place where we try to do some of that hearing God.

But it"s always a bit of a nervous time for me. Kinda like a yearly job review where you have 50 or so bosses sitting in front of you listening to your year.

And the other side is that they are not your bosses at all, you follow God"s leading and communicate what you feel he is saying to you. They may like that, and they may not like it.

There you go, welcome to the party.

Then add a bit of history, a sprinkling of drama, and a large dose of group nerves, and you have the makings of a long and stressful day.

And I suddenly feel very tired inside.

Like completing a lengthy journey or like when I"ve just finished writing a long paper. It feels like I"ve been tying up the final parts of a very big project.

It feels like you"ve accomplished something, but instead of a celebration, you need to go to bed for a week.

Except that tomorrow it begins all over again.