From The Desk of Pastor Matt

Leadership Team Meeting Notes September 20, 2026 
The Leadership Team met on September 20, 2026. We had not met in several months during the summer. This gave us time to reflect on what we have done and what we need to do.

We opened with a leadership lesson from Chick-fil-A. Years ago, after the restaurant first opened, they were competing for space in the fast-food market. Founder S. Truett Cathy met with the business leaders to discuss how to remain competitive. The conversation quickly turned to how they could grow in sales, locations, and dollars. All the talk was about getting “bigger.” Eventually, he told them that getting bigger should not be the driving goal. Rather, their mission should be getting better. Better food. Better service. Better restaurants. He showed them that if Chick-fil-A was better in every way, they would naturally get bigger. As time would tell, he was right. That’s true for churches, too. If we want to grow in every way possible, then let’s focus on getting better at what we do.

We spent a chunk of time looking at where the church currently is as an organization. To know where we’re going, we must be clear on where we are. We used George Bullard’s “Church Life Cycle” model to look at the health of FCC. This model puts a church anywhere on a spectrum between Infancy and Death. There are signs of where a church is on this spectrum. For example, a church with good vision, management, programs, and relationships is at Adulthood. As individuals, we all judged where we thought our church is. The answers ranged from Maturity to Retirement.

One thing we took away from that exercise is that FCC needs a more defined and supported vision and set of goals. A vision of who God wants us to be and what God wants us to do is one of the first things to disappear in a church’s life cycle. So, we will be working to clarify our mission and goals. Then, we’ll work to communicate that information.

For the remainder of 2026, we will continue working towards these goals:

  • Having more church activities that promote unity.
  • Focus on how to serve the children and youth of our community and church.
  • We will take another look at Holy Cow’s results and have a conversation.
  • We will continue restarting Stephen Ministry and finding care receivers.

Additionally, we started the process of reviewing our church By-Laws to identify any areas that can be clarified or improved.

Peace,

Pastor Matt