Ecclesiastes 3:1-7 tells us that there is a time for everything, and a season for all activity:
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
NIV Translation
As a parent, it is blatantly obvious that September heralds a new season. The return of children to school brings with it some much needed relief for diary management, the anxiety of whether our children will settle in well to their new classes and schools and the administrative challenge of how the drop-off and pick-up arrangements will actually work. Is it possible to be in two places at once?
However, September feels for you, it is a great time to ask ‘What season is our church in?’ Is a time for activity, for planting, tearing down, building, scattering, gathering, keeping or throwing away – to pick up on just a few of the themes from the passage above.
The premise behind our recommended annual planning cycle is the need to understand what season your church is in, so that you can plan how to be effective and help your team cohere around shared priorities. I’ve just taken my home church through their planning process for the autumn term, which was a simple process of (a) identifying our key priorities for the term and (b) assessing whether our calendar, communications, and use of resources reflect these priorities. Just a few simple questions, but hopefully a profound impact…
For my church, September is a key time to welcome, gather and retain newcomers. This inevitably means refreshing our welcome packs, briefing our welcome teams, preparing for newcomers’ events, and ensuring our workflows are robust and optimised.
If you are also at the start of a ‘Newcomers’ season, please take the time to revisit our ‘Next Steps Workflows webinar’ and ‘Let it Flow’ workflow seminar from the Cutting Edge conference, held in June this year, as both of these resources may help you craft a workflow to help this season bear fruit. How can you creatively approach the season you’re in, enabling the Spiritual gift of administration to support, enable and enhance the ministry of the church?
September is also a season of new beginnings. 12 UCAN members start Cohort 3 of the Managing Church Well ILM L5 course this month. Please pray for them at the beginning of this journey. Several administrators have recently signed up for our Distance Learning Course with Cliff College (with others having recently completed -see below) and the UCAN team will be busy this month: exhibiting at the Christian Resource Exhibition in Sandown Park (11-13 October) (do come and see us!), holding an area training day in Belfast and hosting a webinar on recruitment (please see below).
I pray that your September is fruitful, enjoyable, and focussed. And for those getting used to the school run again, try and stay sane!
With every blessing,
Andy Bagwell
Executive Director, UCAN