Meetings

My life is a life where I have meetings which I know are important, on the one hand, and not thrilling, on the other.

This week I have been to Camp Christian 3 times for meetings - a personnel committee meeting, minister's preaching workshop and dinner, and today a regional council meeting.

I have been on the regional council off and on for 22 years. And today may have been my last meeting. I declined to continue my term as we get asked if we want to continue every three years.

When I was first on the regional board - I would usually say nothing. I would listen to everyone else, vote appropriately, tick off all the issues on the agenda and then go home. I remember being impressed by some of my colleagues who questioned what was going on and really seemed to understand better than I did.

Now, I am not at silent and frequently ask questions, give reports and even will state my position on things. It is so important in any group to have people who are willing to spend time on the inner workings of the organization - we have to vote on the budget, be apprised on what is going on and help to make decisions about the future. And I have been a good and loyal respresentative at these meetings. Over the years the regional board meetings have gotten a little shorter - today's was only 5 hours. It used to be over night and all day on Saturday. I still am happy to be done with it.

As I serve a church I recognize how much people try to avoid meetings - and we try as hard as we can to keep them under an hour - although it really is impossible with our board meetings. Nobody likes meetings - but then the nedxt thing you know someone is complaining about the colore of a room, a change in worship or some new thing we are doing and they could have voted yes or no if they had just gone to the meeting.

Meetings - hate spending a beautiful Saturday at one - but I know we need em.