Collaboration

By Pastor Paul Gauche

Today’s Word: ‘Collaboration’ as in… The Welcome The Seasons project launching on November 20-21, is a study in collaboration.

All of this began over a decade ago. I was longing for some reflective time in a hectic Advent season. Christmas was coming, and I was feeling cranky about that. Needing a creative diversion, I began writing, exploring the rich daily themes of Advent and Christmas and posting the entries in a digital journal.

For the past 24 months, we have been shaping this remarkable resource into something practical, inspiring, as well as beautiful. It’s taken a large village to create this.

And so it is with deep gratitude that I acknowledge the following teams of people for their high level of collaboration, creativity, and commitment: Pastoral Team: Jeff Marian, Sandy Rothschiller, and Jason Kramme. Worship Arts Team: Mark Slaughter, Kyle Peterson, Matt Johnson, Deanna Welch, Jean Roberts, and Jan Palmquist.

Editing Team: Liz Caswell, for her relentless pursuit of turning a decent thought into a good sentence and a great paragraph into engaging devotional writing; for Jennifer Cockerill and her ability to turn one-dimensional ideas on paper into three-dimensional realities, for identifying the “through-line” and holding everyone accountable; for Karen Helle and her ability to sniff out typos, and Jeff Heintzemann for finding the publisher. Creative Writing Team: Jody Slaughter and Marilyn Tubbs for scripture and prayers, and Val McLure for the small group resources. Communications Team: Beth Beaty and Liz Ridpath for their work to make sure this resource looks as good on paper as it does online, and seeing to it that Welcome the Seasons has a local as well as a global audience. Media Arts Team: Darren Hensel, Ethan Miller, and Jake Berg.

Artists and photography teams: Ron Bergerson, Rocky Boelter, Mary Brainard, Katie Clymer Pederson (whose art is featured here), Fred Dingler, Connie Everist, Bonnie Featherstone, Brenda Gard, Robin Kutz, Allen Gray, Scott Bouman, Bob Pelton, Brenda Erickson, Amy Kalsow, and Eric Elton. The Musicians Team: Matt Johnson, Handt Hanson, Megan Kot, Jenna Graves, Sydney Hendrickson, Trevor Wiest, Dash Leander, and Topher King.

For this collaboration, I am deeply, deeply grateful…

#100days50words

Paul Gauche is the Pastor of Life Transitions at Prince of Peace. His posts are part of his #100days50words project, where he blogs about a different word each week. You can follow his project on Instagram (@pgauche) or on his blog, Thriving Rhythms.

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