Every semester, right around a month before it ends, I usually hit some sort of wall. Not a big wall, it's just the "Why are semesters so long?" wall. There are 5 weeks left in the semester. I trick myself into calling it 4 weeks because I've got two three day weeks this month, but that doesn't bring the official end of the semester (turning grades in) any closer.
My to do list was getting shorter, and then I started to write down the things I need to do in preparation for next semester, and it got very long again. I'm mostly trying to whittle away at it now so that I can have a focused push in December for the new year.
Even it has always been this way, it seems like this year a lot more people seem a lot more burdened with stuff on campus. This is related to the changing of our leadership and people stepping into new roles to pick up the slack, and the fact that we had an 18% jump in enrollment (read the news article if you're interested), and the slow build up to our final accreditation visit, and (for me personally) the completely revamped system of math remediation. There are just a lot of changes on campus (mostly positive), and everyone is trying to make it work.
This reminds me that we're going to try to hire another math professor. Right now, I'm the only tenure track math professor and one of two full time instructors. This is an unsustainable situation for a campus of 3000 students. The good news is that there are a lot of qualified applicants out there. The bad news is that there are a LOT of qualified applicants out there. This search is going to be very difficult because of the sheer volume we're expecting. So that's another thing on the to do list.
I haven't had as much to say recently regarding church because there really hasn't been much to talk about. It was about 2.5 months ago when our previous candidate left under a weird cloud, and the time in between had been filled mostly with quiet (but not hidden) pessimism about the long term prospects of staying at the church. The week-to-week game of sermon roulette and lack of strong, visible leadership were particularly frustrating because the problems are obvious, but I am in no position to help fix it. From a structural standpoint, they are things that would be addressed at the level of an Associate Pastor of Small Groups or higher. The problem is that we don't have one of those, and there wasn't anyone higher up the ladder who was willing or able to take up that type of role.
Despite the issues at the top of the organizational chart, there was some good work going on at a lower level. This year, our church had a Crazy Fall Festival as an outreach event to the community, providing a safe alternative to trick-or-treating. Outreach at our church has never really been a strong point. There is the idea out there that passing out bottles of water to people is an effective way to reach people. It's a nice gesture, but I've always questioned the effectiveness of such a project. If someone gives you a bottle of water with a business card that says "Call us when your next need arises" are you really going to call them up just because they gave you a bottle of water? Would you not just contact people within your own network, those people with whom you've had a pre-existing relationship, or a place that was recommended to you by one of those people?
But instead of one of those types of projects, this was aimed directly at the neighborhood. No gimmicks, no blatant church-isms... just a night to open the doors of the church and have fun with some kids.
Over the month of October, the leaders were able to pull together something like 100 volunteers (which is a huge number considering the state of the church and its history of getting volunteers), and it all came together in a very good way (not without its share of bumps, of course).
We saw a lot of new people come through the doors. I guess that means that the festival was successful at the task it was designed to do. But I think the thing that makes it successful is that there was a different "feel" around the church that evening. I was talking with a number of people, some of whom have been around the church much longer than me, and they expressed a sense of change. One person said that it has been a while since the it "felt" like the church was getting behind one thing, and not fighting with each other about it.
Next week, we have a senior pastor candidate coming through. There is a much more hopeful sense about him (even before he has arrived) than with the other two candidates. The Dr. Speer candidacy felt like it was forced and Pastor Al only had luke-warm support, but would have gone through if the other mysterious thing had not happened. I took a moment to look back at some notes and dates, and I guess we've now been without a Senior Pastor since April 2009 (18 months), and a pastoral staff of one (worship arts pastor) since February. I think the mood is that we're ready to grab onto whoever it is that shows up (as long as he's not painfully and obviously flawed). So hopefully that will all go down in a good way, and we can finally start a new chapter at church.
I've got more on my mind, and could probably ramble for another 3-4 paragraphs about stuff if I wanted to, but I'm done for the night.
