Effective, Mission-Driven Meetings, Rev. Justin Cloute and Sean Young

Presentation Description

How long do your church meetings last? (In many congregations, two to three hours is normal.) When you walk out of those meetings, do you feel you accomplished anything substantial? Or does it sometimes feel like you’re talking about the same issues month after month? Do meeting participants do anything between meetings, or does it seem like your committees and ministry teams meet and talk and not a whole lot else? The Lord calls us to steward all the resources he has provided us. That includes time. Is the time your congregation spends in meetings good stewardship? If your congregation struggles to get people to fill various committees and ministry teams, might it be because they think it is poor stewardship of their time to be involved in a poorly run operation?

In this presentation, we will see that for meetings to be worthwhile, they need to help a congregation fulfill its mission. The primary focus of this workshop will be on the Church Council or Operation Meeting, but the general principles discussed could be applied in various settings: committees, teams, ministry groups, etc. We will share sample agendas and consider what needs to be included in an agenda (and what doesn’t) to make a meeting effective. We will discuss what needs to be reported (and what doesn’t). We will see how, ultimately, the best meetings are simply plan management, which implies there is a good plan in place.

The prayer is that after this presentation, you will have some idea how to run meetings in such a way that they’re done much more quickly and everyone leaves knowing what they have to do before the next meeting, allowing your ministry plan to get traction.

Speaker Bio

Rev. Justin Cloute

Pastor Justin Cloute had the privilege of serving a smaller mission congregation (Living Savior) in Missoula, Mont. for 16 years before moving to St. Luke’s in Watertown, Wis., where he has been blessed to serve a larger congregation for four years. He also served on the WELS Campus Ministry Committee for eight years and is currently a member of the Institute for Lutheran Apologetics. He and his wife Rachel have four children and enjoy skiing, biking, and hiking. In his spare time Pastor Cloute loves consuming podcasts and racing mountain bikes.

Sean Young

Mr. Sean Young has been an active congregational member of the WELS since his adult confirmation in March of 1983. He has been working within the field of operational management in the public and private sectors with entities that are both for and non-profit for twenty-five plus years. He currently has the privilege of serving as a council member at St. Luke’s in Watertown, Wis., where he has been blessed to work alongside a solid group of lay leaders as we stand together with Rev. Cloute and Rev. Redfield to share the good news of Jesus in Dodge and Jefferson Counties. He and his wife Kirsten have two grown children who live in NYC and Park Ridge, Ill. In his spare time Sean appreciates spending time playing cribbage with his bride.