Having completed my three year term on the Leadership Team (LT), I can now reflect on how unique the experience was. I have served on corporate leadership teams, and I have served as a church elder, but nothing prepared me for this chapter of my faith walk.
Kairos seems to be a unique church family, and its Leadership Team is a reflection of our community: a group of people who are authentic (sometimes flawed!), but ultimately striving, as intentionally as we can, to follow Jesus.
My previous experience with church Elder meetings certainly involved prayer and seeking to follow Godâs will, but also, copious amounts of time spent on Agendas and Minutes, and a more-than-passing acquaintance with Robertâs Rules of Order. What a refreshing change, serving on LT. Sure, we always had an agenda, but the bulk of our âbusinessâ meetings were spent engaging various methods of identifying where we see Jesus in action, and how we can better follow God. Drew has done a great job of framing this as the ultimate goal of the Kairos Leadership Team, and structuring our meetings around the pursuit of Jesus.
Another enjoyable aspect of serving on LT was the opportunity to interact with a small group of some of the most faithful people I have ever had the pleasure of serving with, and the added bonus came from the perspective of being old enough to be the parent of almost everyone in the room! What an inspiration, and a relief, to know that a younger generation of such faithful people are coming behind me – there is hope for this world!
One of my favorite stories is the time we voted on the budget. Even this task is not as âbusinessâ as it sounds, as you will see by my conclusion. We had about eight weeks until the new financial year was to begin. Staff had submitted the numbers that they felt were needed for the various line items in the budget. The total budget number being requested was slightly higher than the previous year. Unfortunately, we were experiencing a shortfall as we headed into the final weeks of the fiscal year. If historical data held true, we were set to come up approximately $140,000 short for the year. I was alarmed; I was accustomed to setting fiscally-realistic budgets.
Primarily at my insistence, we had an intense discussion at our monthly meeting. I wish I had a recording of the various positions voiced so eloquently. Your Leadership Team named specific places where theyâve seen God show up around the various budget line items, they expressed excitement about where theyâve seen Jesus at work, and conveyed their faith that God will meet us in the end. The Team trusted in Godâs abundance. They were confident in setting an ambitious budget, grounded in faith, that would allow God to continue his work in this world.
Yours truly, however, had a heart of stone (see Exodus 7:3). Where they saw trust in God, I saw folly.
The vote was 11-1. Over the next few weeks, I prayed that the shortfall would not be as extreme as I feared. I even tried to pray for the entire shortfall to be covered, but that was a pro-forma prayer, because of course, THAT WASN’T GOING TO HAPPEN!
Well, you may recall the Finance Team standing before our community last summer, once the fiscal year had closed, and announcing âwe closed the year on June 30th with a $54,800 surplus thanks to this churchâs incredible generosity.â Yes, a Surplus. I have never been so happy to have been so wrong.
Jonathan Sturtz showed amazing leadership (and Drew demonstrated remarkable restraint with me) throughout this entire process. Jonathan has said on numerous occasions that his âmentality around money has been completely transformedâ because of the four years that he has served on the Finance Team. He often speaks about the extreme generosity of our community, and how the Finance Team experience involves praying and discernment and engaging with others. He said, âInstead of growing more cynical or exhausted about this topic, we have found the stresses, questions, and hard decisions have been a source of hope for what God is doing in and through our church…We believe engaging our money with thoughtfulness, asking hard questions about where we spend it, and truly finding ways to rely on Jesus is the way of life to the fullest.â
This is just one story that illustrates the faith of your Leadership Team.
Thanks to my experience on LT, I am humbled, inspired, and eager to continue my pursuit of Jesus.
– Nancy Langham