During my nine years as a full-time youth minister, I loved the freedom that came with the job. Everyday I could roll out of bed at 11 a.m., hit the local noon Mass, grab some lunch, and get to the office for a fun-filled day of whatever I had planned.
It was great. It was beautiful, and it worked, except for one day each week.
There was one day a week when this joy was robbed from me like a win from the Green Bay Packers by a bunch of replacement officials.
The one day when I had to reluctantly skip my morning viewing of The Price is Right so I could get to the office early.
And what day was that?
Staff meeting day.
On the surface, it seems harmless enough right? I mean, if you have a staff, you should probably meet with them regularly, but if my parish staff meetings were anything like yours, ministry wasn’t the only topic on the agenda. Frankly, it didn’t even always get top billing. After all we had lots of important items to discuss:
Proper copier usage including which one to use for higher quantity copies.
How to correctly fill out time sheets, especially for those of us who are “never in the office.”
The importance of using 11-point font in all bulletin article entries.
Oh, there are just some things I miss about Parish Youth Ministry. But for those of you still in the trenches, I give you a Parish Staff Meeting Survival Guide. Try these at your own risk:
- Take some time to prepare a report on “How a Copier Works.” The next time someone brings up anything to do with a copier, stop them and say, “Excuse me, but I think before we get into this, we really need to understand how a copier works. I’ve prepared this report…”
- Count how many times people clear their throat and keep a tally on your notepad. This will make it look like you’re taking good notes. After the meeting, say the number as you’re walking out, but don’t tell anyone what the number means.
- Fist bump the person sitting next to you anytime they speak.
- Bring along a brown paper bag and place it on your hand, creating a puppet. Anytime someone makes a good point, move your hand up and down and have the puppet say “Good point.”
- Place a stack of telephone books on your chair and sit on them so you are several inches higher than everyone else. Pretend like nothing is out of the ordinary. If someone asks what you’re doing, tell them you want to know what it’s like to be a pharmacist.
Obviously, these are all in good fun unless you want to end up on the unemployment line. But a guy can dream can’t he?
Honestly, if I could do it all over again, I would have been more intentional about engaging in Parish Staff Meetings. Not only were they a great opportunity to be an advocate for the youth, but they were a chance to genuinely take an interest in the work of my fellow staff members. Maybe if I had done that, they would have taken a greater interest in my ministry.
Question: What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever discussed at a staff meeting? (Share below.)
We once spent 12 minutes discussing soup spoons…plastic vs metal, hos many we had on hand and whether or not we would need actual soup spoons or if regular spoons would work for a volunteer dinner.
Favorite staff meeting moment of all time: Discussing what to do with extra money from a capital campaign and the assistant youth minister suggests (in full sarcasm) that we put a whale tank in the nave. I learned an important lesson about the average parish staff’s inability to detect and process sarcasm and humor.
Oh wow! I don’t know which part of this comment is funnier. But, I am wondering who that assistant youth minister could have been…
“There was one day a week when this joy was robbed from me like a win from the Green Bay Packers by a bunch of replacement officials.”
too soon Eric, too soon
Yeah…sorry about that. But I did clear that line with a Green Bay Packers fan first.
I created a coffee-drinking game. Anytime one of our staff member’s said the words “thought process” (she said this A LOT), I would take a drink. By the end of the meeting, my coffee cup would usually be dry.
It’s since caught on and now everyone does it. Our wonderful thought-processor has finally started to use another phrase. Fortunately, she takes it really well.
Yes! I love it!
How long cement will take to dry! I wish I was kidding!
Oh my! That sounds almost as fun as watching cement dry…
We started an interactive board at the local college. Part of the agenda was reviewing and answering some of the questions written by students. Favorite question posed: “why is my poop green?”. As a team we answered the question with answers like “needing to go to confession” and some other sarcastic answers.Took a good 15 minutes for a team member to realize we were kidding. Meetings can be fun!
P.S. Bring a toy to the meeting and randomly throw or shoot someone with the toy to end the discussion. Makes our meeting pretty enjoyable and people tend to stay awake!
HaHaHa!!! No way! That is awesome!
I’ve started to strongly dislike the word “discern” because my fellow staff members mention it everytime that they are thinking about something… like changing the toiletpaper dispensers in the bathrooms in the Narthex
Oh my gosh. “Discern” has become one of the most overused words in the Church. I think we need to better discern our use of the word “discern.”
We once spent an ENTIRE staff meeting talking about the spatulas in the kitchen that went missing. It was a very serious conversation at the meeting. But, it has since then become a joke. So when something else is MIA, a few of us will say that it’s with the spatulas. I REALLY want to do all of the things you listed. I was literally laughing out loud with the fist bumping the person next to you every time they speak (mainly because I always sit next to the little old lady that runs the RE program…and she talks all the time!). Love your humor, Eric. Thanks for this post.
Haha! That’s the exact image I was going for when I wrote that. Young Youth Minister fist bumping old DRE, bookkeeper, HR person, etc. Love it!
If you do it, you’ll have to report back about how it went over.
P.S. Did the Knights have to get involved in the spatula incident. I don’t know how they’re gonna do pancake breakfasts with out ‘em.