Not your typical town hall meeting.

I experienced my first ‘church town hall’ meeting last night. WOW!

I admit; I walked in with some trepidation. The future can sometimes be unsettling if you don’t already know the outcome. (For those who are tempted to email me that I shouldn’t fear the future because it is in God’s hands… I already know… I am working on that area of my life.)

Town Hall meetings can be very helpful and informative or they can have the ingredients to be explosive. When people have concerns and share them with a spirit of grace, their character shines through. What I witnessed last night was a room full of gracious people.

I love this church, and I love the people that attend this church, even the ones I don’t always see eye to eye with on certain things. No church is filled with perfect people… but I think we come close. (Ha.)

Thanks to everyone who attended last night’s meeting, and for your input. If you missed it, we plan to have another town hall meeting in the fall, but if you feel you have a burning question that can’t wait that long, by all means, send it along to our church board via srfboard@srfconnect.com.

Pastor Donald Calder

Commodus says... fail!

If you’re anything like me, you don’t like to fail.

Somewhere along this journey of growing and maturing into adults, we’ve learned that failure is unacceptable. But what happens when you find yourself in leadership? Many get paralyzed because they have this fear of failure. Fear is one of the enemy’s greatest tools. When we are afraid to fail, we fail to dream. If you are going to dream and follow through on some of those dreams, failure is not an option – it is a must.

Leo Buscaglia said it well: “We seem to gain wisdom more readily throughout our failures than through our successes. We always think of failure as the antitheses of success, but it isn’t. Success often lies just the other side of failure.”

Craig Groeschel said, “If you are not failing, you have stopped dreaming. You‘ll eventually stop learning. And you will stop growing. Those who have ‘it’, fail often.”

Let me be honest… I have failed many times, and in doing so I am learning how to fail gracefully, and am learning some principles along the way. Thankfully God isn’t finished with me yet.

Join us this year as we learn about failure AND success during the 2010 Global Leadership Summit on August 5-6.

Pastor Donald Calder

The last time I blogged on leadership I said it gets “messy,” and it’s true. This truth does not come from a text book that I read, but from personal experience. So when the task is messy and it gets difficult, I choose to do two things:

1. First, I turn to people who have spiritual depth. The leader who thinks he can always do it on his own without input from wise counsel is in Big Trouble. I am truly grateful for the men and women in my life that I can turn to for counsel who have more life experience or different life experience than I do, and have journeyed with God longer than me or differently than me. They are a priceless treasure of resource.
2. Secondly, it is very easy to get jaded and bitter in leadership, so I must choose to seize joy in the midst of a mess.  Don’t let your emotions overtake your mission. With so many “joy-robbers” around, I must seize the joy, or I could go a long time without any.

I hope you will join us this year for the Global Leadership Summit on August 5-6.

Pastor Donald Calder

Anyone that grew up around me knows I am not the kind of person that really liked getting dirty. I was the kind of child that could play in the dirt with his friends all day and not get any dirt on me. When my buddies ask me to go 4 wheeling back in the woods and it just finished raining, I know it means I would get muddy, and so I can comfortably respond to the invitation with, “I have a previous appointment.” (Ha.)

So to my surprise, I heard last year at the Leadership Summit that leadership can get messy. UGH!!  I have been avoiding getting dirty my whole life and now I am told the position I hold can get messy. I don’t think I fully understood what that really meant until 2010. I should have known last year that God would be up to something in my life if I am hearing that leadership is messy. Why did I need to know that? Was that trivial information or pertinent information?

When one gets covered in manure (which is not only dirty, but smelly), one quickly begins to wonder why he doesn’t get out of the way and go on an extended cruise where cow manure is not plentiful. However, when leadership gets messy, that is not the time to run and become passive – it’s definitely the time to become pro-active. Therefore, 2010 has been the year that I need to be more pro-active. (Even though cruising the Caribbean would have been more to my liking, it wasn’t what I was called to do.)

I want to encourage you to consider joining us this year for the Global Leadership Summit 2010. The dates are August 5&6. I really believe these two days will encourage, energize and equip you for where God has placed you at this time.

Pastor Donald Calder

Today my mind is racing with thoughts about this year’s Leadership Summit. I am wondering what I will learn, what is it that I need to learn, and how will I lead differently because of my involvement this year. I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I do know I will leave a different person than when I walked through the doors to this year’s event.

I encourage you to do your best to participate in this year’s Summit. Like always, the speakers are top notch and will stretch us to think beyond what we have considered in the past. The theme is “Lead Where You Are,” and whether that be in the home, workplace, community, or church, we all have a circle of influence. I really believe StoneRidge has good leaders, but together let’s go from being good leaders to great leaders.

I guarantee these two days together will sharpen our leadership skills and take us to the next level as we all influence people on a daily basis. As the host church for this event, our church is given a significantly discounted rate of $105 +tax. This rate is half the price most attendees will pay, but it expires on June 22nd. I am encouraging you to register for the Summit this week at the Welcome Centre.

Looking forward to seeing you this year at the Summit!

Pastor Donald Calder

PS.  I was reminded of something David Gergen said at the 2009 Summit: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, then go together.” I believe we want to go far, so let’s do it together.