Mike Fichter's blog

The one hour board meeting is one of the greatest tools a life movement ministry can adopt in elevating the performance of its board and in recruiting new top-level members.

One hour meetings? Seriously? Seriously.

The one hour board meeting is possible with adherence to several key elements.

1. Unified agreement on the one hour limit. This should go without saying, but everyone must understand in advance that board meetings will be strictly kept to one hour.

2. Prioritized agenda. Put the big stuff first, small stuff last.

3. Quality board chair. The board chair directs discussion and keeps the meeting on time.

4. Advance reports. The board must receive all staff, financial, and committee reports in advance, read the material in advance, and ask questions in advance.

5. Use the parking lot. The “parking lot” is where you park non-agenda items for future discussion.

6. Start on time. Do not reward late arrivers by waiting for them before starting the meeting.

7. Minimize social discussion. Encourage social discussion to occur before or after the meeting.

8. Ask permission to extend the meeting if needed. If you need an extra 15 minutes, get unanimous approval to continue. If that’s not enough time, schedule a new meeting.

On Sunday afternoon I learned a lot of about marathons. I didn’t participate in one, but literally sat on my front porch and watched as the country road in front of my home was filled with runners and walkers straining to complete the 26.2 course. Being situated at the 21-mile mark of the race, you can well-imagine the toll the route was taking on its travelers.

The most fascinating aspect of it all, however, was the water station and its dozen or so attendants. As each runner approached within a few hundred feet of the station, every single volunteer began to clap and shout out encouragement.

You can do it!

Great job!

Go for it!

They weren’t just cheering for the star athletes. They cheered for everyone. Even the ones who looked like they couldn’t make it one more mile. And they were total strangers.

What a picture of what encouragement in the life movement should look like.

Leaders are tired. They’re hurting. They don’t feel that they can go one more mile. Sometimes all they need is for one person to say: stay strong.

Who is it that you can encourage today?

Of all the holidays and events on our calendars, I believe there is none more important than Easter Sunday.

The life movement’s entire reason for existing is to promote and protect the value of human life because it is created in the image of God. If it were not — if human life were simply highly evolved amoeba fighting to survive in a dog-eat-dog world — then the best we could hope for is to appeal to a supposed charitable nature for the good of society.

We can point to Psalm 139 and speak of how God knits each of us together in the womb. Critics will say it is merely Jewish poetry, or laugh at it as an ancient attempt to explain the mystery of fetal development.

We can appeal to the common concern man has for man when tragedy strikes in places like Haiti as a sign of God-given compassion for others. Critics will point to Auschwitz or Dachau and say that man is an animal.

We can talk about teachings in the Christian church on the sanctity of life. Critics will call it superstitious, biased against other faiths, or lies.

But when we talk about the Creator of Life, we can point to an empty tomb as validation that the God of the universe is who He says He is.

Easter must not be a three-day weekend that places our programs and efforts on hold. It must be the central event in human history that we must hold on to as proof that we each bear the fingerprints of God.

How can we not protect so precious a gift?