The Cession Staff and First month Plan

The Second night in NZ, me and Rachel Nigro (in the green) received a welcome dinner from the cession staff and their spouses. The staff includes from left to right: Rhett(brown), Melissa(teal), Katie(pink), me, Kristen(white/red) and Brett(stripes)
I am excited to be here and to see all of the potential God has in store for the people and the church and my "ACTIVATOR" side wants to commit and jump into everything, but this is what i have decided the first months focus is for:

1st Month Focus:
-PREPARE
I am visiting people, asking questions, making observations, hopefully attending a few different churches, and avoiding committing. This first month is for forming a schedule and formulating a plan without jumping into and overcommitting to early. I get to look and dream by myself and with people, but feel no obligation to fix or activate. Trying to think longterm here.

-PRAY
This is not an attack on any one person or church, both times i have been here God has laid on me the ABSOLUTE NECESSITY for a CULTURE of PRAYER. I am Studying Daniel & Elijah who i see as men of prayer. I fear that too often prayer means to guys either boring, too much talking and care for other people borderline gossip, just sitting around and not accomplishing anything, or an awkward place of intimacy that we don’t honestly know how to handle or want to deal with.

-PRESS ON
I already have enough commitments between catching up with past friends in New Zealand, getting settled and keeping up with my online Master's classes, so pressing on in excellence in what i am already doing instead of adding is the focus for the beginning.

So this is what i will be reminding myself daily for the next few weeks.