Joyful Admin Goes on Retreat

Joy was abundant at the recent Godly Administrators Retreat at Forest Lakes and provided a rare opportunity to peek under the hood and see what makes some of the administrators in our movement tick.

This year’s retreat began with a Godly Admin version of Taskmaster. 

Among much hilarity, important lessons were learnt, such as nerf guns don’t beat hand thrown ones when aiming for a bucket and if you are competing against a beautifully executed and deployed paper aeroplanes with an idiosyncratic one you may not win, but with willpower and perseverance you can come an exhilarating and close second.

 The retreat brings together participants from the Godly Admin discipleship group hosted each year by Rev Paul Carey and Hazel Nugent.

Glenna Matcham, EA to Archdeacon Gendy Thomson said the retreat gave participants the opportunity explore what’s joyful, what we hold dear and what we are trying to achieve in our jobs.  

“Church administrators work in the service of others and when challenged to find a vision for their jobs what stood out to me was their heart for people. 

“It turns out that as administrators are quietly going about the business of helping things to run smoothly, they can also be prayer warriors, people champions and social glue,” said Glenna.

She reflected that the most obvious way to measure success in administration is through absence, the absence of mistakes and friction, ‘there is nothing to see here.’

“The challenge presented by hanging out with experienced Godly administrators was to consider our role in light of presence – the presence of care, the presence of joy and the presence of God.”

This was a profound realisation.

While the weather was not conducive to getting lost in the beautiful outdoors, the black swans on the grey lake and the sound of the rain on the roof made the laughter, fellowship, food and rainbow clad centrepiece inside all the more joyful.

If you have questions about Godly Admin, contact Hazel Nugent at the Anglican Centre.