Yesterday I got to be part of a really good meeting. Yep, I said it - "good" and "meeting" in the same sentence. I actually like some meetings, but others drain the life out of me. (sidenote: if you lead many meetings, you should read Pat Lencioni's books.)

Yesterday's meeting was in the context of church leadership. Sometimes these go well. Sometimes not. Yesterday someone from outside our normal circle joined us to challenge us with some questions. They were Big Issue questions. Questions that require the sharing of dreams and reliance on God. None of it was "business stuff" or "management details." I'm not going to talk about the specifics of the discussion (even though they were very exciting to me.) But I do want to make a couple of observations:

It took about 15 minutes or so for the conversation to kick into gear. We needed some time to get there.

It helped to ask people to contribute their thoughts and dreams. It seems like some were needing a direct invitation before they'd share. That's OK, we just need to keep that in mind.

Several dreams coincided. Maybe God has been prompting us in some of the same ways, but we just didn't know it because we hadn't talked about it.

I felt like the rest of the meeting was great. It was very productive, it went quickly, and we left on the same page. I think that since we focused on Big issues early, it helped us not focus on the Small issues later. We really didn't have bunny trails, and the smaller management decisions went by quickly.

There was a moment where our conversation elevated to another level, and I think we felt energy, synergy, excitement, and I think we felt like God was in the middle of it. What if our meetings shifted to the point that we actually became excited about long meetings? That would be a shift in thought.

I also thought that not every discussion like this is going to be great. We probably need to all recognize that sometimes it may not catch wind and fly. It's OK if they end flat every once in a while, but they will never fly if we don't try (that rhyme is for you, John.) think that it will be a low percentage that go flat, but we need to not let one dry discussion keep us from moving forward with more.

So here is for making meetings something that charges us up and unleashes creativity!