80 UCAN+ subscribers joined us and Douglas Mullen from Anthony Collins Solicitors for an employment briefing for churches. Free for all UCAN+ subscribers, Jules Morgan opened with a spiritual tonic, followed by Doug guiding us through a number of employment principles and updates that churches need to be aware of. A live Q&A session helped churches ask direct questions, and break-out rooms enabled delegates to follow up some of the issues raised.

This month we’re talking about our staff. In Exodus 17:11 we read:

11 As long as Moses held up the staff in his hand, the Israelites had the advantage. But whenever he dropped his hand, the Amalekites gained the advantage.

Here we have a picture of Moses being instructed by God to uphold his staff as he surveyed the battle before him. It was a physical sign of Moses being visible, watching, and prayerfully upholding the Israelite army before God. Moses’ role was not to be fighting, but to be looking out for the men who rallied to his call. It was a spiritual relationship between a team and its captain; between crew and pilot; between a community and its leader who was following God.

Whether you are a Minister or CEO moving on, an employee who is leaving, or a volunteer handing over a major responsibility, it makes good sense to prepare a ‘handover paper’ of some kind to help your successor get off to a great start.

If your church employs paid staff the Trustees are legally responsible for their selection, employment and management. But most Trustees fail to appreciate this. So the advice here is to appoint a specialist group to take on this role on behalf of the legal employers as delegated responsibility.

“It is hopeless”; “We’re never going to be able to recover from this”; “I can’t see the way through”

Even if those are words you haven’t actually uttered out loud over the last 12months, perhaps you - or others you work alongside in your team - have silently listened to those thoughts surface in minds and hearts.

God is used to it when his people get to this place. Sometimes, it is ONLY when we get to this place that He can step in and transform a situation and transform us. If we cannot see the answer or the next step forwards, it means we’re finally trusting completely on God rather than being ‘god’ of our own plans.

We’re excited to announce following this week’s UCAN involvement with the new Operations stream at the New Wine Leadership Conference, that UCAN will be formally partnering with New Wine in their ongoing support of Operations and Administration.

Cutting Edge 2021 has taken the plunge and gone digital for this year.

Due to the unveiling of the government's roadmap, we have re-shaped and refined this year’s conference offering, moving the full residential back a year to June 2022. Find out the details of the new digital conference here.

Just a few spaces remain. Join us this Thursday as we hear live from leadership consultant, Mark Herbert, on “Listening to your team”.

In the midst of the challenges of the last year, we’ve been working hard to pack even more value into your UCAN membership. Read here to find out more.

Have you considered that the church is in captivity at present?

Compared to this time last year, we have been uprooted and taken to a foreign land, been prevented from gathering for worship and being community together, and have had to adapt to a strange socially-distanced, infection-resistant way of living that we yearn to leave behind.

The book of Daniel follows the positioning of a faithful follower of God in the midst of enforced captivity.

This is a very timely message to us right now.

Is there a better time than this to ‘thrive in change?’ That’s the theme of our 2021 residential conference and we can’t wait to be together. Of course, the pandemic lockdown rules themselves are constantly changing and there is a lot of uncertainty remaining. Our conference team is working hard behind-the-scenes to help us get together, even if the shape or timing of the conference has to change.