Finding Priests

Exodus 28:1-5
1 "Have Aaron your brother brought to you from among the Israelites, along with his sons Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, so they may serve me as priests. 2 Make sacred garments for your brother Aaron, to give him dignity and honor. 3 Tell all the skilled men to whom I have given wisdom in such matters that they are to make garments for Aaron, for his consecration, so he may serve me as priest. 4 These are the garments they are to make: a breastpiece, an ephod, a robe, a woven tunic, a turban and a sash. They are to make these sacred garments for your brother Aaron and his sons, so they may serve me as priests. 5 Have them use gold, and blue, purple and scarlet yarn, and fine linen.

We’re getting ready to focus on our org charts as a part of our infrastructure focus. The concept excites me greatly and then exhausts me.

I can very clearly outline what my teams within Cypress Arts should look like and what roles need to be filled for us to function as a well-oiled machine….HOWEVER… Actually finding the right people to fit into those well defined spots… now that’s a different story!

How wonderful it would be if, like in Exodus 28, God simply told me as He did Moses, who would fill these roles. Maybe He will… I don’t know.

I do believe that He knows who He has created for these roles in this time. I am committing to praying for each of these unfilled roles and for the people He already has set for them.

I take the leadership of teams very seriously and want to be certain to have the right person in that role. But I don’t want to be so cautious that I am paralyzed to make a decision and slow down the growth of the team because of that. But on the other hand, I don’t want to be too quick in my decision and misplace a person. That could cause harm to the person and to the team.

So, I’m committing to praying and listening… Moses waited on the mountain six days before God called out to him.

I Saw the Light!

This year for our Chrismtas program we created a service called "Illuminate". We wanted to clearly proclaim the message that God meets us where we are in our darkness and in our mess and He brings light and Illuminates our lives with hope.

Wow, did I ever get lost in all of the typical detail and chaos of the process! More so than any Christmas before. So much so that for the first four services I could not honestly and objectively decide if the end result of all of our work was a good program or not.

Fortunately, we did five services!

For the fifth service, for the first time I was able to actually observe the service. And, it was good. We did clearly communicate our message. And we did it creatively and with diversity and my team really took their performance (whether behind a tech board or on the platform) to the next level. It was a good feeling to realize all of that.

Other than a good feeling, I walked away with questions. How did I get lost in the process this year? How many more "Christmases" do I have in me? Did I harm any of my personal relationships in the process? How can I do this better? and of course, What will we do next year?!

One question that was quickly asked and more quickly answered was Am I really doing what I'm supposed to be doing? I'm embarrassed to say I ask this way too often.

Fortunately I have known for years that there is only one occupation that makes my heart race and that is using the arts to tell people the story of God's love.

So, I don't know the answers to all of the other questions. But with that one being a foregone conclusion I packed up my laptop and headed back into the office this week. And here I sit figuring out yet another creative way to say the same thing.... God loves us and He made the ultimate sacrifice to make it possible for us to share life and eternity with him.