Why Wood Mountain Alliance is Close to my Heart.

Hello everyone, 

So we have just finished our last class in foundations of church ministry, and it was a blast of a class. David Ernst was an awesome professor and really made sure that your beliefs were actually rooted in the scriptures. After thinking about my class, I have come to appreciate some areas in my home church. 

One thing that I appreciate about Wood Mountain alliance is the sense of community that is accompanied with my church. Every Sunday, there is a potluck meal so we as a church can gather and become a close knit community of believers. I think with where our location, if our church did not have potluck every day, we would not be a close community but almost like any other church. My church is also quite small averaging 30-40 people a Sunday. With a small congregation, everybody is able to know everyone fairly well. This makes for an awesome atmosphere and a rooted community.

Another thing I appreciate about my home church is where we do our services. In our church, we do not have a church building, so depending on the month and what time of year, we move around to different locations. For some people this may be a hassle and a major inconvenience, but personally for me it really helps my views on church. With the moving around, I get the visual representation that church is not a building, it’s a gather of believers. The church is not a building; it is within all of us. 

Those are just a few things that my church back home hold special in my heart. I hope that everyone has something like this that they can hold special in their heart. 

Isaiah, the only one who writes on this blog... 

leadership traits

Hello my faithful few readers,

Over the course of the few months I’ve been here at Kaleo, I have seen some good examples of being a good leader. I've seen them in the classic sense of leadership, where the leader is up front and directing the whole scenario and working alongside the minions. I've also seen leadership in the background sense, where you would not consider them a leader, but without them taking charge on their portion of the work, the whole system would be shot. 

A few area's that I have seen some awesome up front leadership is through the Love Crofton initiative, and the creative assignment for Old Testament Literature. a few things I've noticed from the people running these projects is this, to be a good leader, you must have clear and concise communication with the people you are working with and for, you must also be willing to take ideas and suggestions from the people you are working with. 

I have found it to be a challenge to sometimes provide clear communication. Speaking isn't exactly one of my strong points as a leader and so providing clear direction was very difficult. I believe that I will be able to grow tremendously in this ability as I head up more leadership opportunities. One point that really is a prime example of this is when I was the leader on the Love Crofton Initiative. One of my workers asked me a question, and in my head I had a clear and concise explanation, but when it exited my mouth it was very confusing, and it took me a while to figure out what I said that didn't make sense. One time that the trait of taking suggestions from others was used effectively was on another job for Love Crofton. I was a part of a three man team that had a Job to clean out the gutters of an old couple’s house. The man suggested that we use an extended power washer to clear out the gutters. I suggested that two of us go up and take a shorter power washer so we could see the progress and so we could do a better job. The man agreed that that was the better course of action. 

This is another week or two in the life of a prairie boy on the coast, (I forget when’s the last time I blogged.)

Isaiah