Cohort meeting

Yesterday we had our monthly MLI (missional leadership initiative) cohort meeting. It was in Findlay, Ohio at the CGGC headquarters. Ryan drove to my house (took him about an hour to get here) and we went over together (about 1 hr. 45 minutes from here). Eddie and Brian flew together from Sullivan and Mattoon, IL (a pilot goes to Eddie's church and his parents live in Findlay). Candice and Jim live in Findlay. I noticed I was the only one who had shorts on.

It had been awhile since I've been to denominational headquarters. In fact, I don't remember the last time I was there. Seems like I have been since we lived in Findlay 11 years ago, but I don't remember why or when. At any rate, it looked about the same, but some of the people were different.

Ryan and I arrived about 9:45 am and Brian and Eddie were already there in Candice's office (she works at denom headquarters). Jim arrived right after us. We met in one of the conference rooms and Candice prepared a nice spread for us: coffee, pop, fruit, muffins, and we filled out our order for subs from Bellachino's (?) as soon as we got there. We talked about the new ministry and personal metrics in the area of time in the morning, then had lunch at noon. After eating we all piled in Lance's office and harassed him. In the afternoon we discussed money. For some reason Candice had me lead the discussion in the afternoon, even though there really didn't need to be a leader - but I wrote things on the dry erase board (in green marker, btw - money). We prayed for one another and got done around 2:30 I suppose. By the time we said our good-byes it must have been around 2:45, and I pulled in my driveway right at 4:30 pm.

The August meeting is scheduled to be in Anderson, IN, and I am in charge of it. I'm not sure if we should just meet at Perkins restaurant, or maybe Art's pizza (maybe the one on Scatterfield), or if we should go to the Exodus, or the University, or where. I'm sure I'll figure something out.

It was a pretty good time - despite one of the members starting the day off on this rant about President Obama... Said things like, "I don't know how you can call yourself a Christian and vote for him." I kept my mouth shut. Anyway, I thought I kinda had this "metrics" thing figured out, but I didn't have it down as well as I thought I did. I learned a thing or two, and I think it is a little frustrating for our group - for one thing we're a bigger group with six people; and we also have people from a wide variety of ministry contexts - but I think we all like one another (at least I do) and seem to get along pretty well.

So, I guess that's that.

Peace out; and in.