Tuesdays are our usual day for staff meeting and I canceled it for today. We meet religiously, well as religiously as a bunch of Baptists can, every Tuesday. In staff meeting we will walk through the ministry blueprint and go from room to room checking on things, planning events and dreaming. After everyone arrives at either my house or Gabe's house (Gabe has better food) we open with prayer. The first room we look into is our Foyer. The Foyer is the place where people enter the house and for us it is our Sunday worship services. We will begin by noting guests and absentees. A determination will be made on who and how we will follow up with each. As a church we value people and they are our first priority. After people we will look at positives. Last week we began by asking the question "what happened Sunday that made you feel successful in ministry?" (Got that one from Andy Stanley) Then we look at problems, what did not work, here we will dissect every element of the service and evaluate its effectiveness so that we can either improve it or kill it. The second room we enter is the Living Room, that is the place where people get to know one another, for us it is our Bible Fellowship Activities. We know that by having activities, our small groups will help people integrate into the group for a deeper experience down the road. These activities serve as the stepping stone into our Bible Fellowship Tables. We will both review recent events as well as plan upcoming events. The next room we talk about is our Dining Room, for us the Dining room is the Small Group Bible Fellowship Tables. This is where our people come together as family and are fed spiritually. Everything we have done to this point is to direct people into a small group where they will be loved and cared for. We will look at what we can do to move certain people into small groups, evaluate upcoming lesson series, and work on leadership development. The next room we talk about is the Kitchen, this for us is ministry. Wednesday nights is focused on the kitchen and we spend a lot of time training people in ministry and hopefully giving them the tools to serve. We will talk about upcoming outreach events and how we can improve our standard of service. We will wrap things up by talking about the Office, (No, not that one) and taking care of any inner office things such as finances, purchase orders, and other internal stuff. So there you have it. A typical staff meeting here at Cornerstone. I will say that we have a great team of leaders and I look forward to meeting with them each week. They are the workhorses. Sue, have a great day; Gabe, enjoy your parents; Chuck, drive safe; Seth, congratualtions; and Bruce, come back soon we miss you!