I was charged with sharing the topics and fruits of our directional meeting for Epic last Wednesday, so here goes... (Sorry to be posting this so late!)
Mark Adams, Louis, Jamie, Lynette and I were there.
We all spent a little bit of time sharing and asking questions, but three questions really stood out to me:
1. Is Epic a priority?
2. Are we a priority to each other?
And the question Louis sent out:
3. Do you come to get something out of Epic, or to give?
Louis brought some great scripture references to the discussion, specifically Hebrews 10:24-25, Ephesians 5:1, and Matthew 20:25-28, and felt that God was pointing us in the direction of those verses. He pointed out the leadership and partnership in the verse from Matthew, and hopes that we can become that kind of community with each other.
Louis also called out three issues he felt as a leader of Epic:
- He'd like us to consider appointing a co-lead for him to work with
- He wants to try to work on his communication with the group (and we should also freely communicate our needs to him)
- He doesn't want to make "executive decisions"; he wants to find consensus among the group.
Louis said he felt like he had dropped the ball as a leader, and asked us to forgive him and also consider letting him continue as a co-leader going forward. This was something he wanted the whole group to hear & think about.
We tossed around a lot of thoughts & ideas about Sunday mornings. It felt like we had similar aspirations for, and complaints about, our times together:
- We want continuity / we feel like our overall plan lacks...a plan
- We want everyone to be able to use their gifts for the group...and we want to grow our gifts
- We want to be committed to using our gifts for the group / the church / people as a whole -- to be service-oriented & to contribute
- We want to make sure that other people in the church or in the area know we're here and feel welcome
Some ideas we tossed around for Sunday mornings were:
- for future Sunday mornings: alternate short video series or book with deeper, exploratory bible studies. Jamie would bring in commentaries/research (or we'd borrow from the library), and we'd break into small groups to explore the material together. Jamie would lead us the first few times.
- assign a person as facilitator/teacher for every four to six weeks, plus assign a gap-filler who could be ready to replace if something came up
- find out what Mark's sermon series(es) will cover ahead of time and base a study around one of those
- leave the church one Sunday a month and do "alternative" sessions - service projects, going and meeting people, etc -- shouldn't feel confined to the room
- break into small groups for prayer more often
- use an entire session for prayer sometime
We also talked about how to make people feel more welcome & how to connect w/ people who might want to join Epic. We thought we could/should...
- talk to new people more! be engaged; don't chicken out and start just talking to Epic regulars
- use the blog more :)
- create a page on the Hillcrest site, and link it to Facebook or our blog
- connect with newcomers via Facebook, rather than requesting their email.
- put Epic email/contact list someplace central, like on our Google calendar or secure place on Facebook page
Finally, we talked about how to use our Sunday mornings & Thursday evenings for the next month.
Today, 4/8, the girls can meet & catch up if they want. Can use today and/or next Thurs, 4/15, to discuss what to do next.
Guys seemed to have plans for today & next Thurs. (?)
Thurs 4/22 and 4/29 will both be all-Epic Thursdays, with some continued conversation around these topics on the 22nd and general fun-time on the 29th.
I think that's about everything -- please add anything I forgot or leave comments about what you're thinking!
Yaaaay Epic!
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