Happy Halloween!
This afternoon, clad in my black and orange, I attended our Shabbat team meeting, and as usual, I come away inspired. Thanks to our beloved former housemate Ari Johnson, the Shabbat team is filled with real leaders, and each person has fashioned a specific role for him or herself. One person helps coordinate food and cleanup, another recruits people to do the various Friday night rituals like kiddush and Motzei, another recruits service leaders, and still another recruits people to talk about cool social justice efforts in our community.
In order to support one another and improve the overall Shabbat experience, at our meeting each person got the chance to talk through how to improve the role (s)he was working on, and then the group brainstormed the best next steps. For example, we decided to make signs on all of our kitchen cabinets so people know where to put away our various dishes during our rolling communal cleanup. We also decided to encourage people leading services to include English readings and/or words of wisdom beyond just reading the translation of a given prayer, to make our prayer experience more meaningful to people. We also decided that we want to build our team and our pool of service leaders by having one on one conversations with potential leaders and new guests, where we actively learn about people's skills and interests, and where appropriate, ask people to step up and volunteer for a specific task or to join our team.
It is just exciting to have so many dynamic people thinking together about how to grow our community. By valuing our specific roles and supporting one another, we are able to honor each person's skills and talents, make sure the work gets done, and create a product that reflects the values and interests of our larger group.
And the best part is, my job is just to cheer everyone else on. Go team!
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