2006 Church Council Fall Retreat

I am at the 2006 MSMBC Church Council Retreat. Actually, the staff and the pastoral leaders of the church are together this weekend - evaluating the past year of ministry and planning for the upcoming year. This is the fourth of fifth time we have done this. And it is usually a great time of prayer, fellowship, and vision-casting. This year is no different. No, I take that back. It is a little different this year. We have come here with a pretty clear and unified agenda of matters we need to process and made decisions about before we go into 2007. Yesterday was a good start. We were able to address most of the things that we scheduled for the agenda. We were even able to move forward on some of the challenging subjects we have to tackle. This is truly a blessing from God. In the past, it has been much harder for us to work some through issues. And we have used the blocks of time reserved for five different things just to cover one. I am not sure what is making the difference this year. But, whatever it is, I credit God for it. Please pray that today's meetings will be just as productive and will bear much fruit to the glory of God. And pray that God will use us in a greater way in 2007 to win more Christians and to develop better Christians to the glory.