My Brilliant Career

This week marks the beginning of a new role I have taken on at church.  My term as a Council Elder ended in May.  I have stayed on as a Shepherding Elder and have begun my work in the newly-created position of Care Coordinator.  We have a Pastoral Care model that is quite similar to the Stephen ministry.  I will be the "go to" person for coordinating care needs with district elders, journey partners, and the pastoral staff.


A lot of the work I'll be doing is purely organizational, data management, flow of information and coordination kind of stuff.  But I'm most excited about the work I'll be doing with District Elders.  All of our elders are assigned a "district" of 10-12 people/couples. My district was the test group last year for developing the group into a "village".  Rather than individual visitations, we met together twice as the whole group in an informal social setting to develop community.  And on a regular basis we now have emails flowing between us notifying me (the Elder) of prayer needs, physical needs, celebrations, etc which I pass on to the whole group when appropriate.  We made a covenant with each other to take notice of each other.  If a need arises in our group -- for instance, someone is hospitalized and meals for the family need to be coordinated -- rather than a general plea going out in the bulletin on Sunday, as our District Elder, I notify the group  and we fill the needs.  Our "village" takes care of our villager's needs!  


It has been an amazing experience to introduce the concept to my district, see them sign on enthusiastically, and then see it actually working throughout the year.  We are not a "small group" that meets for Bible study, etc.   We have simply agreed to take note of what's going on with each other and take care of pastoral needs.  In November, Pastor Koot and I will begin working with the other District Elders to help them get the village concept working in their districts.  I'm really looking forward to it.  It's really putting the day-to-day pastoral care of the church into everyone's hands.


On Sunday, Harry will be installed as a Service Deacon so we will both be in office for the next year.  When we were in Las Vegas on our trip we joked that perhaps this was not the ideal place for Elder Karen and Deacon Harry to vacation!  We had a good laugh over the sound of that statement.


I don't know why God keeps putting these church leadership roles in my path.  It kind of started with my push to get a relevant Seniors' ministry started.  I worked at that for 7 years and am still quite passionate about it.  I thought that with my Council term ending I would be returning to the Senior Adult Ministry program this fall.  I guess God had something else in mind for me.  I hope He provides me with clarity of mind and the necessary compassion to effectively do the job (not to mention the time to do it well).


-K


www.riverparkchurch.com

Mommy ... it's over

As I typed the title, I realized that some of you may not get that pop culture reference.  (If you happen to catch "Just for Laughs" on the comedy network you'll recognize that as the closing line.)  For me, it's also a reference to the completion of our long holiday and a return to work.

We spent our last week just mucking around the house.  We canned applesauce and cranberry sauce ...

(24 half-quarts of applesauce and 6 pints of cranberry sauce)

Went shopping at a new "outlet plus more" mall that just opened (scooped up 2 pair of shoes each) ...

(boots were the preferred choice)

Watched movies ...

(Louise actually watches TV -- even when there are no dogs on the screen!)

Had the grand-boys for a stay-over from Saturday to Sunday ...

(Jacob in post-pasta glory proclaiming "Good Job!")

And spent Thanksgiving day at Linda and John's house
eating turkey, playing ping-pong and just hanging out.

(Jacob and Anthony demonstrating their drumming skills)

We are rested and settling back into the work routine.  It's been a good 6 weeks.

P.S.  If you haven't heard the news yet, grand-baby #3 is on his/her way.  
         Expected arrival:  April 15