Oh, Thank God, You Have an AGENDA!
by Pastor Caitlin Trussell, Pinnacle West Associate
There’s a big difference between the suspicion-filled accusation that, “You have an agenda,” versus the palpable relief when you show up for a meeting in which the facilitator “has an agenda.” Meeting agendas get us from start to finish with the assurance that we’re going to cover important ground while remembering the little things we’re there to do, too. Talk about stress relief!
I meet with my congregation’s committee chairs the week ahead of meetings to make sure we’re on the same page about what we hope to cover. It’s a trick I learned over the decade that I was deeply in the community organizing world and frequently meeting with public officials and elected leaders. We accomplished more with these folks during the time they’d given us if our group had a well-planned, tight agenda that included time stamps for each item.
Meeting agendas also decrease stress when I’m meeting one-to-one with staff or ministry lay-leaders. If I know I have a meeting coming up, relevant topics flit in and out of my mind in the days ahead of the conversation so I keep documents open in my laptop to which I can add items to discuss. Onboarding new staff includes telling them that, “I write things down to respect both of our time, hence agendas.” When we sit down to meet, I hand them a copy of my agenda, and I have one, too. Or we both have our laptops open to the document and run through the shared agenda we both created. Regardless of paper or electronic mediums, notes can be taken that include action steps or additional topics that come to mind.
In a world that seems bent on filling our minds with more than is humanly possible to process, agendas relieve the stress of remembering everything to be accomplished during a meeting. And who among us doesn’t appreciate good use of time? After all, time is our most precious resource. Agendas help us use it well for the sake of the gospel and for our own sake. Phew!
