Leadership Briefing | September 12, 2026
What We Heard at the Summit, and the Year Ahead

Anton Brown • Senior Pastor
September 12, 2026

5 Minute Read

What We Heard at the Summit, and the Year Ahead

By Pastor Anton Brown
September 12, 2026

Fellow servants,

Thank you for Friday evening and Saturday, August 7th and 8th, at the Briggs. You came prepared, spoke plainly, and prayed. Your table sheets have been gathered into a report. Here is what they say, and where it goes from here.

The most important thing: the room converged around the Elders three priorities for 2027: deepen prayer, strengthen participation in the covenant life of the church, and make Sunday worship more intentionally intergenerational. The room also named real constraints: schedules, volunteers, family needs, facilities, and uneven participation. That honesty is a gift.

The three priorities, as the tables saw them

An evening prayer service. Simple and traditional, aimed at January 2027. Two tables put this first. The open questions are practical: which evening, how we avoid colliding with our Bible Fellowship Groups, and how we protect family time.

Children in the worship service. DiscipleTown rests for a season, children remain in the service with their parents, and the nursery continues, with sermon-coordinated handouts to help children take part. More than one table noted it is already happening. The open question is what support we offer children who cannot yet sit through a full service.

Covenant duties and self-examination. Periodic reminders of our covenant, a short time of prayer and self-examination before congregational meetings, a leadership meeting beforehand, and clear EQUIP goals. The hardest question was the right one: what pathway moves people from the fringes into full participation?

The split was two tables for prayer, one for children in worship, one for covenant duties, and every table affirmed all three. Let me be plain: the worksheets record preferences, proposed changes, and questions, not final votes, named owners, or deadlines. Those will be confirmed, not inferred. On resources, most sheets said attention only; a few asked for a modest budget line.

What the Lord has done, and what we have lost

The gratitude lists were long: new people and families, new leaders and deacons, baptisms, a strong women's Bible Fellowship Group, stabilized worship, better financial reporting, and a financial cushion. God is still with this church, and we said so.

We also named losses honestly. They cluster around people, participation, leadership capacity, and consistency: members and families who drifted away, newcomers who did not return, some giving, DiscipleTown, and a Bible Fellowship Group that stopped meeting. We do not pretend these away. We bring them to the Lord.

You can get more insight from the Summit through the Leadership Summit Capture Report.
The Proposed 2027 Ministry Calendar

The first document is the Proposed 2027 Ministry Calendar🔗. It consolidates the Summit calendar-wall sticky notes into a month-by-month draft, January through December 2027. Each line is marked Clear (readable on the photographs) or Confirm (partly legible, no firm date, or open to more than one reading). It ends with a confirmation worksheet: event, date and time, owner, room, budget, and publicity due.

One rule, asked graciously: nothing on it is a commitment until the Servants Council reviews it on Tuesday, September 29; it is on that agenda. Please do not announce 2027 dates yet. A date repeated in good faith becomes a promise nobody voted on. The ask of every leader, the confirmation pass our process calls for: open the draft, check your items (event name, date, owner, room, budget, and communication deadline), resolve every line marked "Confirm," and send corrections to the church office by September 22nd.

The Mayflower Church Q4 2026 Operations Calendar

The second document is the Mayflower Church Q4 2026 Operations Calendar, the operations and events calendar for the quarter we are entering. It runs on the normal fall pattern, with Bible Fellowship Groups, EQUIP in Romans on Sundays at 8:45 AM, Men of the Word, and the Ladies' Community Bible Study meeting, and it is what Team Leaders, Group Leaders, and Board Members plan against.

Dates at a glance:
  • Tuesday, September 29: Servants Council on Zoom, 7:00 PM
  • The Lord's Supper: Sundays, October 4, November 1, and December 6
  • Senior Luncheon: Thursdays, October 8, November 12, and December 10, 11:30 AM, Grille 58, Halifax
  • Brothers, Bibles & Bacon: Saturdays, October 17, November 21, and December 19
  • Sunday, October 25: Quarterly Congregational Meeting and Potluck after worship, also Reformation Sunday; elections and the FY27 budget per the bylaws
  • Sunday, November 1: Daylight Saving Time ends
  • Saturday, November 14: Operation Christmas Child Shoebox Packing Party
  • Tuesday, November 24: Thanksgiving Service, 6:00 PM
  • Sunday, November 29: First Sunday of Advent; the Advent series is From Garden to Manger, November 29 to December 20
  • Sunday, December 13: Women's Cookie Exchange and Yankee Swap, 2:00 PM
  • Saturday, December 19: Luminaries, 5:30 to 8:30 PM
  • Sunday, December 20: Intro to Mayflower, 8:45 AM, Lower Level Room 5
  • Thursday, December 24: Christmas Eve Service, 5:00 PM
A closing word

The Lord has not left this church, and the lists you wrote in August say so. Do the next faithful thing, confirm your dates, and pray for the prayer service before it exists. "Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:58, ESV).

Grace and peace,
Pastor Anton

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September 12, 2026 • 5 Minute Read
Leadership Briefing | September 12, 2026
What We Heard at the Summit, and the Year Ahead By Pastor Anton Brown September 12, 2026 Fellow servants, Thank you for Friday evening and Saturday, August 7th and 8th, at the Briggs. You came prepared, spoke plainly, and prayed. Your table sheets have been gathered into a report. Here is what they say, and where it goes from here. The most important thing: the room converged around the Elders three priorities for 2027: deepen prayer, strengthen participation in the covenant life of the church, and make Sunday worship more intentionally intergenerational. The room also named real constraints: schedules, volunteers, family needs, facilities, and uneven participation. That honesty is a gift. The three priorities, as the tables saw them An evening prayer service. Simple and traditional, aimed at January 2027. Two tables put this first. The open questions are practical: which evening, how we avoid colliding with our Bible Fellowship Groups, and how we protect family time. Children in the worship service. DiscipleTown rests for a season, children remain in the service with their parents, and the nursery continues, with sermon-coordinated handouts to help children take part. More than one table noted it is already happening. The open question is what support we offer children who cannot yet sit through a full service. Covenant duties and self-examination. Periodic reminders of our covenant, a short time of prayer and self-examination before congregational meetings, a leadership meeting beforehand, and clear EQUIP goals. The hardest question was the right one: what pathway moves people from the fringes into full participation? The split was two tables for prayer, one for children in worship, one for covenant duties, and every table affirmed all three. Let me be plain: the worksheets record preferences, proposed changes, and questions, not final votes, named owners, or deadlines. Those will be confirmed, not inferred. On resources, most sheets said attention only; a few asked for a modest budget line. What the Lord has done, and what we have lost The gratitude lists were long: new people and families, new leaders and deacons, baptisms, a strong women's Bible Fellowship Group, stabilized worship, better financial reporting, and a financial cushion. God is still with this church, and we said so. We also named losses honestly. They cluster around people, participation, leadership capacity, and consistency: members and families who drifted away, newcomers who did not return, some giving, DiscipleTown, and a Bible Fellowship Group that stopped meeting. We do not pretend these away. We bring them to the Lord. You can get more insight from the Summit through the Leadership Summit Capture Report. The Proposed 2027 Ministry Calendar The first document is the Proposed 2027 Ministry Calendar🔗. It consolidates the Summit calendar-wall sticky notes into a month-by-month draft, January through December 2027. Each line is marked Clear (readable on the photographs) or Confirm (partly legible, no firm date, or open to more than one reading). It ends with a confirmation worksheet: event, date and time, owner, room, budget, and publicity due. One rule, asked graciously: nothing on it is a commitment until the Servants Council reviews it on Tuesday, September 29; it is on that agenda. Please do not announce 2027 dates yet. A date repeated in good faith becomes a promise nobody voted on. The ask of every leader, the confirmation pass our process calls for: open the draft, check your items (event name, date, owner, room, budget, and communication deadline), resolve every line marked "Confirm," and send corrections to the church office by September 22nd. The Mayflower Church Q4 2026 Operations Calendar The second document is the Mayflower Church Q4 2026 Operations Calendar, the operations and events calendar for the quarter we are entering. It runs on the normal fall pattern, with Bible Fellowship Groups, EQUIP in Romans on Sundays at 8:45 AM, Men of the Word, and the Ladies' Community Bible Study meeting, and it is what Team Leaders, Group Leaders, and Board Members plan against. Dates at a glance: Tuesday, September 29: Servants Council on Zoom, 7:00 PM The Lord's Supper: Sundays, October 4, November 1, and December 6 Senior Luncheon: Thursdays, October 8, November 12, and December 10, 11:30 AM, Grille 58, Halifax Brothers, Bibles & Bacon: Saturdays, October 17, November 21, and December 19 Sunday, October 25: Quarterly Congregational Meeting and Potluck after worship, also Reformation Sunday; elections and the FY27 budget per the bylaws Sunday, November 1: Daylight Saving Time ends Saturday, November 14: Operation Christmas Child Shoebox Packing Party Tuesday, November 24: Thanksgiving Service, 6:00 PM Sunday, November 29: First Sunday of Advent; the Advent series is From Garden to Manger, November 29 to December 20 Sunday, December 13: Women's Cookie Exchange and Yankee Swap, 2:00 PM Saturday, December 19: Luminaries, 5:30 to 8:30 PM Sunday, December 20: Intro to Mayflower, 8:45 AM, Lower Level Room 5 Thursday, December 24: Christmas Eve Service, 5:00 PM A closing word The Lord has not left this church, and the lists you wrote in August say so. Do the next faithful thing, confirm your dates, and pray for the prayer service before it exists. "Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:58, ESV). Grace and peace, Pastor Anton

Anton Brown

Senior Pastor

July 11, 2026 • 7 Minute Read
Leadership Briefing | July 11, 2026
PASTOR'S NOTE Dear fellow servants, Our Servants Council gathered this past Saturday, and we opened and closed our work in prayer. That is not a formality. We wanted to seek the Lord before we planned, and to give the morning back to Him when we were done. I want you to know that our summer is showing a healthier, more organized rhythm across the church. Our ministries and leaders are taking clearer shape, the operations plan is settling many things that used to pull at us, and the church office has more room to breathe than it has had in a long while. None of that is a reason to boast. It is a reason to give thanks, and to keep our hands to the work God has put in front of us. There is a good deal to share in this issue, most of it pointing toward our July 26 Quarterly Congregational Meeting. Please read it through, and please pray for that gathering. Warmly in Christ, Pastor Anton MINISTRY UPDATES Quarterly Congregational Meeting, Sunday, July 26, with a luncheon. This is the largest thing on our near horizon, and I want our leaders to help set the tone for it. We are framing this quarter's meeting around worship and prayer, and we will conduct our business in an orderly, Christ-honoring way. The Call to the Meeting and the accompanying materials go out tomorrow, our two-week notice. Please look for them and read them before you come. Governing documents coming to a vote. As part of this meeting, the congregation will consider a set of revision proposals to our constitution and bylaws. At a high level, the aim is to tidy and clarify our governing documents so that the bylaws state our "ends," the goals we are committed to, while our policies carry the "means," the specific ways we pursue them. There are also some housekeeping and conforming corrections. The congregation will also be invited to consider adopting a fuller statement of faith, the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. The full revision proposals will be printed and available with the July 12 materials, so please read them for yourself rather than relying on the summary. Two new deacons and a new member. With thanks to God, the congregation will vote on July 26 to bring on two new deacons, Brad Little and Chris Little. We also warmly welcome Neil Shea, who is coming on as a member. Please keep them and their service in your prayers. Ministry Team Charters are now live. The Servants Council approved our new Ministry Team Charters, and they now live in the Mayflower Wiki under the operations plan (operations plan → organization chart → team charters). Each charter says why a team exists, what its leader is responsible for, where its work begins and ends, and who provides oversight. If you lead a team, please point your people to the charter that covers them. Please ensure new members receive a paper copy along with the link when they join your team. We will walk through the charters together at the Leadership Summit. Family ministry resources are rolling out. We now have children's worship packs, age-appropriate sermon activity sheets, nursery stories tied to the Sunday text, and weekly family devotionals that began on Father's Day, along with a new family-ministry station taking shape in the foyer. These are meant to help our families worship together, and they are an especially warm welcome for visiting families and for families who keep their children with them in the service. One practical request: please help us remind families to return the worship packs after worship so they are ready for the next Sunday. Strengthened child-safety framework. The Council adopted an updated Child Safety Policy along with a new policy governing how we protect the children in our care. A required, hands-on training component for our childcare workers is coming, and clear communication for parents will follow. We take this seriously as an act of love and stewardship toward the families who trust us with their children. Sanctuary guidepost banners in the works. We are designing a set of "guidepost" banners for the sanctuary, drawing on Jeremiah 31:21, "Set up road marks for yourself, make yourself guideposts," to keep our shared values before us as we worship. One way visitors will understand what Mayflower is about is through these banners that display our core values, vision, and mission. DATES AT A GLANCE Sunday, July 26 — Quarterly Congregational Meeting and luncheon Friday and Saturday, August 7 and 8 — Leadership Summit (registration is on this page) Sunday, August 30 — Back to Church / I Love My Church / Southern Rail Sunday, October 25 — next Quarterly Congregational Meeting (Reformation Sunday) For the current operations calendar, see the link below. ON THE SHELF In this issue, I want to put a small, practical book in your hands: What to Do on Thursday: A Layman's Guide to the Practical Use of the Scriptures by Jay E. Adams. The whole burden of the book is the gap between the Bible we hear on Sunday and the decisions we actually face the rest of the week, and Adams patiently teaches ordinary Christians how to move from knowing Scripture to genuinely using it to guide real, everyday choices. That is exactly the work our leaders and servants are doing all the time, making practical decisions on the church's behalf, and I have found this little book a steady help in learning to bring the Word to bear on Thursday and not only on Sunday. I commend it warmly to you as a fellow servant. BEFORE THE NEXT BRIEF A few things to carry into the next two weeks: Watch for the congregational meeting materials in the foyer. The Call to the Meeting and the revision proposals go out tomorrow. Please read them before July 26. Register for the Leadership Summit (August 7 and 8) using the registration block on this page, if you have not already. Point your team to its charter in the Mayflower Wiki, and let me know if you have questions about scope or oversight. Help families return the worship packs after Sunday worship so they are ready for the next week. Mark Your Calendar: The Leadership Summit, August 7 and 8 I have one invitation to close with, and I want you to put it on your calendar ASAP. On Friday and Saturday, August 7 and 8, 2026, we are gathering for a Leadership Summit. This is where we will walk through the operations plan together, sharpen our shared vision, set goals, look at team budgets, and equip one another for the year ahead. I want us to plan shoulder to shoulder and leave more unified than we came. Here is the schedule, so mark both blocks now. We will meet Friday evening, August 7, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., and again Saturday, August 8, from 8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Lunch will be provided on Saturday, so come hungry and plan to stay. We will meet at the Briggs. For now, the most important thing you can do is hold both sessions and plan to be there.Register for Friday HereRegister for Saturday Here Thank you for the way you serve. It is a joy and an honor to labor alongside you, and I believe the Lord has good work for us in the year ahead. Let us do it decently and in order, for His glory and the good of His people.

Anton Brown

Senior Pastor

June 27, 2026 • 8 Minute Read
Leadership Briefing | June 27, 2026
Welcome to Leadership Central and our first Leadership Briefing: Where We Serve Well Together Friends, if you lead anything at Mayflower, this place is for you. Pull up a chair. I want to show you what we have built, and why I believe it is going to make your service lighter, clearer, and more joyful in the year ahead. Welcome For years our leaders have carried a lot in their heads. How we run an event. Who you ask for access to a tool. What we say yes to and what we say no to. Most of that lived in the memory of whoever had done it last, and when that person stepped away, the knowledge often walked out the door with them. That is a hard way to serve. Leadership Central changes that. This is our hub for the people who lead at Mayflower: elders, deacons, ministry leads, and the key volunteers who keep the body moving. Here you will find the resources, the clarity, and the shared rhythms you need to serve well together. Not a manual you read once and forget, but a living place we keep returning to. My hope is simple. When the "how we work together" is written down and shared, you are freed to give your best attention to the people in front of you and to the Gospel we carry. That is the heartbeat of everything we do. We are building a discipleship community rooted in the knowledge of Christ, driven by faith, empowered to share the Gospel, and committed to welcoming and equipping others in love and truth. Leadership Central exists to serve that mission, not to replace it. What the Operations Plan Is The centerpiece of all this is our new operations plan, which the Servants Council adopted on May 30, 2026. We call it the Streamline Admin System. Think of it as Mayflower's operational playbook: sixteen numbered systems that spell out how we work together as a church. Twelve of them are drawn from Michael Lukaszewski's book "Streamline: How To Create Healthy Church Systems," and we have extended his framework with four further systems written for our own setting. It all lives on our church wiki, ready for you to use. Now, I know what a phrase like "admin system" can stir up. It can sound like bureaucracy, like more forms and more meetings. Let me be plain. This is not bureaucracy. This is a gift. When the way we work together is written down and shared, no leader has to reinvent the wheel, no volunteer is left guessing, and no ministry collapses the moment one person steps back. The plan carries the weight of "how" so that you can carry the weight of "who." It frees you to focus on people and on the Gospel, which is exactly where your heart wants to be. The Biblical Case for Shared Plans I want to take a moment here, because I do not want anyone to mistake this for worldly pragmatism. Some Christians get nervous when a church talks about systems and plans, as if order were the enemy of the Spirit. It is not. The Scriptures show us, again and again, that God's people work from agreed-upon, prearranged ways of serving together. Order is not the enemy of love. Order is how love makes sure no one gets overlooked. Look at the early church. In Acts 6, the congregation was growing fast, and a problem surfaced: "their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution" (Acts 6:1, ESV). The apostles did not improvise. They created a defined role, set a clear standard for it, and appointed seven trusted men to that task, so that they themselves could hold to their own calling. "It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables," they said, and so they devoted themselves "to prayer and to the ministry of the word" (Acts 6:2, 4, ESV). A shared plan kept the widows fed and kept the word preached. When a hard question divided the churches in Acts 15, the leaders did not settle it by whoever spoke loudest. They gathered, they deliberated, and they reached a decision they could put in writing and circulate to the churches. "It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us" (Acts 15:28, ESV), they wrote. And when Paul instructed the Corinthians about their gatherings, he summed up the whole concern in one line: "But all things should be done decently and in order" (1 Corinthians 14:40, ESV). And here is what settles it for me. Our Lord Jesus worked this way too. He was never frantic, never scrambling. He appointed twelve and "began to send them out two by two" with specific instructions (Mark 6:7, ESV). He sent seventy-two others on ahead of Him, "two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go" (Luke 10:1, ESV). He made advance arrangements for the upper room and for the colt at the triumphal entry, sending disciples ahead with exact directions. The Son of God moved through His ministry deliberately, entrusting defined responsibilities to His people. If our Savior worked from prearranged plans, we can stop apologizing for doing the same. Plans and shared systems are not a retreat from faith. They are how a body orders itself so the work goes forward in peace and no one is overlooked. How It Helps You This Week This is where it gets practical. Let me put you inside some real situations our leaders face, and show you exactly where the operations plan helps. If you are new to all of this, start at the overview page for the Streamline Admin System and get the lay of the land. A new ministry idea just landed on your plate. How do you decide whether to say yes? Not every good idea is the right idea for us to carry right now. We have ministries we guard with our best energy, and saying yes to everything is how a leader burns out and a church loses focus. Before you commit, look at our Priority Ministries, which names what we protect and what we lovingly say no to. If you want a step-by-step way to weigh the call, our Decision-Making Framework will walk you through it. You just finished an event and want to know whether it was worth doing again. Good instinct. We do not want to keep running things out of habit, and we do not want to quietly drop something that bore real fruit. Our Event Evaluation gives you a simple process and a template to capture what worked, what did not, and whether to do it again. Twenty minutes with that template will save the next leader hours. A new volunteer asks who they report to and how to get the tools they need. This question should never leave anyone stuck. Send them to our Organization Chart and Access page, which lays out who oversees what and how to get set up with the tools for the work. You are stepping into a role and you are not fully sure what is expected of you. That uncertainty is heavy, and it is unfair to leave anyone carrying it alone. We have written standard position descriptions so that every role comes with clear expectations. Spend a few minutes in Role Clarity and Standardization and you will know what you are responsible for, what you are not, and what a good fit in the role looks like. You will be away for a season, or you need to hand a ministry off well. Life happens, whether it is a new baby, a season of caregiving, or simply the right time to pass the baton. None of that should leave a ministry exposed. Our Leadership Transitions page gives you the plans for short-term absence, coverage, and clean handoffs, so the work continues in peace and the next person is set up to thrive. Mark Your Calendar: The Leadership Summit, August 7 and 8 I have one invitation to close with, and I want you to put it on your calendar now. On Friday and Saturday, August 7 and 8, 2026, we are gathering for a Leadership Summit. This is where we will walk through the operations plan together, sharpen our shared vision, and equip one another for the year ahead. I do not want you to meet the Streamline Admin System alone on a screen. I want us to learn it shoulder to shoulder and leave more unified than we came. Here is the schedule, so mark both blocks now. We will meet Friday evening, August 7, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., and again Saturday, August 8, from 8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Lunch will be provided on Saturday, so come hungry and plan to stay. We will meet at the Briggs. For now, the most important thing you can do is hold both sessions and plan to be there. Oh, and REGISTER HERE FOR FRIDAY and HERE FOR SATURDAY! Thank you for the way you serve. It is a joy and an honor to labor alongside you, and I believe the Lord has good work for us in the year ahead. Let us do it decently and in order, for His glory and the good of His people. The Leadership Briefing will be sent every other week.

Anton Brown

Senior Pastor