Leadership Community Day 1

Got into Sacramento last night at 7:30 and Rich Lotterhos met me at Baggage Claim. His flight was also delayed three hours so we took the same rental car down to the Holiday Inn Express...across HWY 99 from First Baptist Church of Elk Grove--the externally focused church that is hosting the second gathering of our third Leadership Community.

Today went very well--as good a first day as we have had. We had talented and passionate teams from ten churches who came ready to learn and contribute. Rich did a great job facilitating the meeting and the WildWorks team of Michael Lagaki and Chris Kutach added a lot of value by capturing graphically and digitally what was discovered. Our "presenter"--the one who adds a bit of grist to the intellectual mill was Don Simmons of Leadership Training Network. Don gave a 4o minute presentation on ten reasons why volunteers serve. Don is a humorous, informed and probably one of the top two or three experts in the subject of mobilizing volunteers. Great stuff.

One exercise we got from Jeff Waldo from University Baptist Church in Houston. Jeff recently had a kidney transplant and could not attend this gathering but he did give us a great concept. Jeff is getting his masters from University in Houston in "Future Studies." UH is the only university in the country to offer such a degree. Futurists create "plausibility scenarios" taking six areas into account--Social, Technology, Economic, Environmental, Politics (to which Jeff adds Religion) to create the accrostic STEEPR. Like the men of Issachar, futurists seek to understand the times...an essential skill for leaders.

After a great dinner at FBEG Rich and I went and caught much of the Kings / Mavericks NBA game before returning to the hotel and finding Pappy O'Daniel pardening the Soggy Bottom Boys and hiring them to be his brain trust. Does it get better than that?