This may well be a parable of the church.

While much attention continues to be given (appropriately) to training leaders and discussing the evolving model of elderships within churches, but we need to talk more about the other side of the relationship—what we sheep bring to our relationship with our shepherds. Like any relationship, we can’t work on only one side of the equation. For our model of shepherding to become truly effective, it can’t just be about the shepherds. We have to also develop our sense of what it means to receive shepherding. You can’t have good healthy shepherds in a church full of bloodthirsty zombie sheep.

Scripture says something really interesting about this in Hebrews 13, which reads “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls and will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with sighing—for that would not be beneficial to you.” Working on the sheep side of the relationship with shepherds doesn’t just make their job more enjoyable for their sake, but it actually helps us, the sheep. When we engage our shepherds and willingly receive the shepherding they offer us, it is to our great advantage, because it creates the possibility of the sort of shepherding relationships we need—shepherds who show us grace, teach us the word, and help us carry our burdens when we are weak.

But how can we have shepherds who show grace if we don’t have sheep who show vulnerability? How can we have shepherds who teach if we don’t have sheep who are eager to learn? How can we have shepherds who help the weak carry their burdens unless we are willing to freely admit our own weaknesses and accept help when it’s offered to us?

The shepherds don’t function in isolation from the body, but function as a part of a body, as an expression of what God is doing in the church as a whole. And the relationship between how the shepherds do their work and how we do ours is one in which the church grows as every piece does its part, as each one of us contributes to the sort of community in which good healthy shepherding naturally happens. The eldership has a role in helping us become the kind of church we need to be, but we must also recognize that the church has a role in helping the elders become the kinds of shepherds they need to be.

We need shepherds who help us hear the word, so that we can be formed by it and hear exactly what we need to take the next steps in growth. But to be able to do that, the elders need us to be willing to share with them where we already are in our process of growth. They need us to become candid about where we have grown, where God is working on us now, and where we are struggling in our faith. This is challenging, because we want to pretend that we’re all in the same place, that we’re all growing in exactly the same way, in exactly the same time—or worse, we want to pretend like we don’t need to grow at all.  We treat Christian maturity as if it’s an all or nothing deal, as if we come up out of the water as fully formed disciples and there is nothing left to do but just hold on and hope we don’t mess up. But in reality, we always need to be fed, we always need to grow.

Elders have a teaching role, not just in classes or big public settings, but as a part of their relationship with their sheep, they naturally feed the sheep with insight from the word. I remember hearing Brent say that an important part of his role is to help people in struggle see their situation from a spiritual perspective, to help them see themselves in a way informed by scripture. And we need that, don’t we? We need people who can come alongside us to speak to where we’re at. But, how can that happen unless we’re willing to be honest about where we really are—not just in times of obvious crisis, but in the routine times that make up so much of our lives and where most of our growing takes place.

We need shepherds who will walk with us in all of life. Not just because they’re elders, but because they are simply part of the church, and that’s what church folk do—we walk with each other. We take care of each other, experience life with each other. Like Paul says:

“But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” -1 Cor 12:24-26

That’s for everybody, whether we think of ourselves as leaders or not—the church is built to be a community of people who live life together, and who share the ups and downs of life together. Good pastoral care doesn’t happen in a church where the shepherds are the only ones doing it. It happens best in communities that understand that we all—each one of  us—has an obligation to look out for each other. Ken has talked with me about continuing to build a culture of pastoral care in the church where it’s not just about the elders, but about all of us pitching in to care for each other. In that culture, the elders are shepherds who lead by example. Shepherds give care to the hurting, but not alone. They lead a community that cares for the hurting among us.

And not just in times of struggle! As we walk together, we learn to give God glory for all the different ways he is at work in our lives. Lance wrote to me that one of the things that has most surprised him about being an elder is how he started noticing how the Spirit was at work in so many lives around the church—Not because of anything special about him being and elder, but because he started opening his eyes and noticing more. He wrote, “I am constantly amazed how the Word of God transforms, grows and matures the believer…To increase my awareness of God growing so many members’ spiritual lives has been a surprise I was not expecting.” Maybe our shepherds could help us recognize more and more of those ways God is at work—but how will that happen unless we make a commitment to share more of our lives with them, to let them walk with us? How will we recognize God’s work in each other unless we’re walking with each other?

As we developed the process we’re using this time to appoint additional elders, Tom reminded us that we needed to build in, from the beginning, some way of gauging the willingness of men to serve. The concept of willingness is critical to the role—we must have willing elders, willing shepherds. First Peter uses that language, that elders should serve willingly, not under compulsion, even eagerly. It’s also true on the other end—we must have members who willingly receive shepherding. Willing shepherds, and willing sheep. Willingness may come easily to neither. But that spirit of willingness is at the heart of the church.

Remember Mark 10? It was in a discussion of who in the community of disciples would lead and who would be led that Jesus told the disciples that he himself “had come not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” In discussing their willingness to serve each other, Jesus called the disciples to consider his own willingness to walk the way of the cross. To close this morning, I want to call you to do the same: consider Jesus. Is there anything in this sermon that exceeds the cross? In the cross, Jesus becomes the ultimate willing shepherd, and paradoxically, the best example of a willing sheep.

In this, as in everything, may we only follow him.

Most of the time, when men become elders, they have very little idea of what things are going to be like.  What should they expect in meetings? What’s expected from them outside of the meeting room? What kinds of questions are people going to start asking them that they never would have heard before? What do you do when your thoughts are on the fringe? It can all be shocking at first, and it takes a little while before it begins to feel somewhat normal.  I’ve heard a lot of men say it was at least six months or a year before it felt normal to them—even two years is common!

Typically, churches add elders in batches, and since a new batch can take a little while to adjust, they often assimilate into the way the group already does things, going with the flow while they learn to swim.  Commonly being a part of an eldership is a moderating force on individuals, bringing them towards a center of thought. That’s mainly healthy and appropriate, part of the way the Spirit runs the church, but there is at least one by product of that process which is potentially negative.

It means it’s difficult for newer elders to influence the process of leadership.  Now, I think they soon enough can have a substantial impact on the direction or content of leadership, affecting the kinds of decisions that get made and the vision that the leadership begins to develop. However, it can be extremely difficult for them to have influence on the way vision is formed and communicated, and the way decisions are made. Changing the way decisions get made is much more difficult than changing the kinds of conclusions themselves.  But which is more critical?

There is a great amount of diversity in the kinds of elderships that exist in churches, and the kinds of processes they use to lead the churches they serve. But I think it’s useful for all of them to think occasionally about the types of practices they use, and how they could be made better.  We’ve done just a little bit of that here at Cedar Lane, and I remember being in a couple of cycles where that happened at PV.  It’s a tough process to do honestly, but there are a couple of things to think about that can make it easier.

1. Does our process match our personnel? The tendency of elderships to change in waves or batches means that it can be helpful to periodically look at the way decisions are made and see if it matches the current group of elders.  What is the best way for the group to communicate?  When is the best time to meet, what should the meetings look like, is there somebody particularly gifted to chair the meetings? All of those questions could easily change with the make-up of the group.

2. Do we have appropriate ways to reach consensus, express dissent, and/or make decisions? Some groups of elders work together for so long that the process gets blurry and even less formal than necessary because the elders easily predict the thoughts and actions of the others. Hence, proposals that wouldn’t achieve the necessary support aren’t seriously brought up or seriously considered, and the role of the dissenter fades away a bit. That’s unfortunate, because the right within the group for a person to express dissent is significant and healthy. That’s not at all to say that because of one dissenting voice a decision can’t be made, but the expression of dissent still enriches a good leadership. Protecting the balance between the place for expressed dissent, the desire to have consensus when possible, and the need to sometimes make decisions that override dissent, is important in creating good leadership processes.

3. Does our process move at an appropriate pace? Does it move too quickly, and bypass time for discernment and prayer?  Does it fail to leave time to outside people that need to be considered?  Or, does it move frustratingly slow? Does failure to prepare for discussion lead to decisions being pushed back through meeting cycles endlessly?  Does it fail to respond to issues quickly enough to be fair to the people affected?

4. Is there room for the spirit in our process? Do we have a chance to meditate on scripture and the state of the church? Does the meeting give a chance for the elders to really practice spiritual discernment, even when that presents ambiguities? Have we given thought to how this works with the leadership as a group?

None of that is to suggest that the administrative tasks of being a shepherd are primary or that the whole role revolves around meetings—it is so much more than that, and much of the important stuff happens outside the conference room as shepherds work in the lives of people.  But these processes should not be ignored, because they can be such a source of encouragement or disillusionment that they can affect those other pastoral roles. They shape how elders think of their role and the work of the spirit in their life and in the church. The effect can be negative—I have no doubt that the church as a whole has lost many good shepherds because of their frustration with unhealthy processes. On the other hand, it’s been my good experience to see many men greatly encouraged by healthy, prayerful processes.

(I’m writing this within the contexts of the Church of Christ, although I imagine it will be somewhat useful to those who use different language for their leadership systems.)

Elderships have a bad reputation, and sometimes for good reason. Churches with dysfunctional leadership teams get burned by terrible decision making, the failure to spiritually care for hurting people, and harsh judgments. Beyond that, there is a thick layer of communication problems that have built up over time, and elderships that have made good and wise decisions have often struggled to nail the follow-up and communication elements of leadership, intensifying distrust and creating distance between themselves and the congregations with which they have been entrusted.

One of the reasons leaving Little Rock was a tough decision for us was that Kelly and I were aware of how common those problems are, and also extremely comfortable with the leadership team at Pleasant Valley. Perfect they most certainly are not, but they are largely functional, and are committed to fulfilling their role in that body as well as they can.  They are extremely prayerful and wise.

That made it hard for us to leave, because we were afraid to trade in the blessings of that highly functional group of shepherds for the unknown element of wherever we would land! Frankly, it was terrifying to walk away from that group of shepherds who had shown us much love and blessed us with much wise counsel over the years. So far, those fears have been misplaced, and we’ve found the eldership here at Cedar Lane to be extremely supportive and helpful. I see in these men the same dedication to spiritual care that I loved and admired at PV, and a commitment to growing in all the various ways they show leadership throughout the church.

Leaders committed to their own personal growth and development into caring shepherds model these things for their churches. They foster two extremely important cultural climates within the church. The first is a culture of personal compassion, where people actively seek to care for other people. In a community dominated by this culture, people extend hospitality to their brothers and sisters, making space for them in their lives. They seek ways to help others carry their burdens, and take initiative to get involved with people on the level of their broken and hurting hearts.  When elders take compassion on as their primary job, it helps everybody else understand that this is really the church’s job. We create a culture of compassion.

Secondly, eldership have a unique opportunity to model a culture of growth for the church. When elders commit to  growing and demonstrate that they are in full pursuit of what it means for them to live as disciples, they foster those kinds of attitudes within the church. On the other hand, how many eldership out there are communicating, intentionally or not, that their own lives as disciples is a fixed entity? How many are communicating that discipleship is about being stable and static? Growth is essential to our lives as disciples, it is a fundamental part of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus—somebody that is learning from him what it means to live in the kingdom of God. Elders committed to their own growth as disciples create an expectation within the church that we are all growing, that discipleship is an active, ongoing process.

These two factors could make a tremendous difference in churches across the country. I’ve been in two churches where it already is making a difference. And I know that those two elderships are just getting started.

This is an extremely complicated transformation on two fronts—Structures and Mentalities. Structures and Mentalities are twin issues, and leaders ignore one or the other to their great frustration. A leadership that effectively changes the structures of the church but doesn’t develop the matching mentalities creates tension and dissatisfaction.  On the other hand, a church that works towards developing external mentalities while dragging its feet in creating matching structures necessarily will produce frustrations as people struggle to live out the mentalities they’ve developed within old structures that were built for other purposes. The two have to be addressed harmoniously. and effective strategic thinking encompasses intentionally addressing both sides.  I’ll deal with what I mean by structural work in a separate post, but today I want to tease out what I mean by “mentalities”, and think about the challenges they pose to churches.

Communities of people naturally develop communal mentalities, or ideas and ways of thinking that come naturally to members of the group.  In terms of the church, some of those mentalities involve how people think about service, responsibility, wealth, leadership, and identity.  There are mentalities and expectations for everything from how nice the church building ought to be to what kinds of roles the ministerial staff should take, and how the offering should be divided up.  Church mentalities exist on several different scales, such as general christian culture, within movements such as evangelicalism, particular denominational traditions or regional subcultures, educational funnels, national tendencies, and at the local congregation level. Each of these levels exists in varying degrees and combinations within church members, and it can make a pretty powerful stew when it comes to people smashed together into one local church body.

There are other factors for how we develop mentalities, such as our familial connections, the habits of our peers, and even our consumption of media.  Leaders need to acknowledge where people come from, who they hang out with, and where their radio dial is parked, because all of those get thrown into the mix in determining the sort of mentalities people develop. Churches themselves add to the mix through all kinds of communication forums such as classes, small group discussions, what ends up in the bulletin and on posters in the halls, the content of worship music, and the act of preaching.  What often happens is that churches don’t intentionally think about what kinds of mentalities they are developing, so that across all those different forums they communicate lots of different mentalities, some of which are blatantly contradictory. Additionally, much of that communication is so accidental and unplanned, that often the mentalities are contradictory even within individual venues themselves.

One final layer of complexity is that every church has families who have lived for several generations within the same denominational tradition or even congregation sitting next to families who have transitioned into that particular faith tradition within a few months or years. That means that they have almost certainly absorbed nuanced mentalities in what it means to be church. Churches that fail to do their part in intentionally and strategically planning the mentalities they want to develop are indeed planning to fail.

What do we do with all of that complexity? I think there are several ways leaders can work towards developing certain mentalities within their church.

1. Use different levels of leadership. Every church has different levels of leadership, from people who are making big picture decisions to people that leading particular classes and small groups to people who are influential among their peers. Understand that each of these levels of leadership shapes the mentalities of the church in important ways.  Begin to have as many conversations with as many of those leaders as you can, in as many formats as you can, about the mentalities you are leading towards.  Every conversation you have holds the potential to multiply your mentality developing efforts.

2. Think through your communication formats. What are you already doing that holds the possibility of influencing the way people think?  Where can you reinforce your teaching, and where are you undermining those messages?

3. Use Common Language. Reinforce the mentalities you are working to develop by being specific about key language that represents those mentalities.  Develop a code that resonates with your people, and reminds them every time they utter it or hear it that this is the sort of mentalitiy that represents the vision of the church.

4. Recognize your current mentality inventory. What sorts of mentalities are already in place in your church? Think through several assumptions you think people have, and whether that is descriptive of a mentality shared by some, most, or all of your church, currently.  Develop a mentality inventory that describes where you are in the current moment, recognizing that it might be different both from the past of the church and the leaderships vision of the future.

5. Beat the drums over and over again. Once you’ve begun to chart a path, this is not a place to be timid.  Be bold, be repetitive, and keep working the different communication forums with as consistent a message as you can manage. Don’t try to cover the church with a set of mentalities, but to saturate it.  You don’t win here when everybody’s heard the mentalities, but when they own them.

The next post in this series is an initial set of mentalities for a church engaged with the community.

One of the gutsier things that pops up repeatedly in Paul’s letters is his unapologetic claim that the churches he ministers should imitate him. I think a case could be made that this element carried more importance in Paul’s understanding of his ministry than we might typically acknowledge, perhaps due to our preference for his more self-effacing statement about being the “chief of sinners”. Coming to grips with the other side of the equation, the bold “be like me” thrust, provides us with some good food for thought, though.

One “be like me” statement is a more critical element in the letter to the  Philippians than is usually acknowledged. Philippians is full of some very personal and passionate narratives of Paul’s life of faith, and of course the wonderful material in chapter 2 highlights Christ’s example of selflessness.   In the end of the second chapter though, the letter shifts to notes about a couple of Paul’s co-workers, Timothy and Epaphroditus.  It’s not the part of Philippians we typically read devotionally or in worship, but Paul’s discussion of these two brothers really serves a critical part of his rhetorical strategy in the letter.  Paul’s purpose in the letter is to help solve a divide in the church, most apparently caused by a rift between two women in the Church, Euodia and Syntyche. His letter works to that end, and all thats written there about Jesus, Timothy, and Epaphroditus works to that common purpose.  They serve as examples, showing the letter’s recipients that the people they honored and loved all lived selfless and sacrificial lives.  Importantly, the autobiographical bits of the letter in chapters 1 and 3 aren’t diversions, but importantly fit directly into that rhetorical strategy, calling upon the Philippians’ desire to be like Paul, even in his sacrificial way of living for the sake of Christ.  All of that, of course, brings us to Phil 3:17.

It’s near the end of his rhetorical push, after Paul’s given all those examples, and he says, “Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.” It’s not a side statement, but an important part of his messge in the letter, and perhaps even his whole ministry.  Paul isn’t scared to say, “Be like me.” It’s really a mouthful.  Complementing Timothy and Epaphroditus as examples was one thing, and the Christological section is natural enough, but the offering of himself as an example boldly punctuates his argument with a deeply personal conviction, giving ultimate testimony that what Paul genuinely believes in the behavior he wishes the recipients to practice.

I want to live like that.  I want to live in such a way, that I can freely turn to the people I love and say, “This is the way to live.” I want to have that boldness and the integrity that makes it possible.

Our vitality as a community of faith depends on the life example that members of our body make available to others.  Typically, we only offer limited visions of ourselves, the self-effacing messages of our own weaknesses, a message which says, “Don’t be like me.”  It’s important for the sake of our ongoing community, though, that we learn to give testimony to how our lives have followed Jesus’s way, and what that has meant and looked like.  How has our path of discipleship changed us?  In what way could I commend my path to others, saying, “It would be good for you to become something like me.”?  I know many of us feel the responsibility to live that way in our families, before our children.  What about in our community of faith?

The next day, Godin wrote another post, writing about what happened later that day. He went to a coffee shop and noticed somebody surfing the web on a laptop, and then watched them happen to go to his blog, apparently for the first time. What he had written that morning was out there, intractable, naked. He was watching somebody get a first impression of him, and as you can imagine, it made him rethink not the truthfulness of his post, but what kind of impression that single post left about what kind of person he is.

Godin’s experience reflects a significant truth. It’s not that we need to orchestrate moments where we can leave the perfect set of first impressions, but we need the discipline of living out what we want the world to see as consistently as we can. That’s not to say that we hide behind a carefully gaurded front, but that we cultivate character and heart, such that what is within us is the front. With any one person, you may only get a single chance. But our goal isn’t to collect huge gatherings of people so that they can take in a well-orchestrated event of a first impression. The truth is, we are always on stage, always impressing, always trying to string together a thousand chances, each of which is itself the single chance we might have with any given person.

My A-Team has been better than this A-Team.

There’s a bit of convergence in two things going on for me today. First, I’m in this process where I’m cleaning out my office, so I’ve got a lot of memories rolling through my head today. That’s intensified by all the gracious comments and notes I’ve gotten from people who’ve been connected with our youth ministry over the last decade. It’s pretty cool, partly because it’s really helping me look back and remember times when I’ve seen God at work among us.

The second thing, of course, is that it’s secretary appreciation day! I have been incredibly blessed by having the support of an awesome secretarial staff! I look back and think about all the people that have been blessed here, all the faces and names in my stashes of pictures, notes, and journals, and I know that none of that would have been possible without the support of a remarkable staff. People give ministers a lot of the credit for stuff that our secretaries really take care of. They don’t want the spotlight, don’t do it for credit, and deflect praise and compliments towards others all the time. They protect us, free us to work in relationships, and actively troubleshoot for us. I can’t tell you how many times wise counsel from our secretarial staff has helped me avoid a crazy misstep in ministry. And God only knows (literally) how many times their help has prevented some of the missteps I did take from becoming major disasters. They were an incredible asset for me as I started out in ministry.

I have a lot of thank you’s in my heart right now. Any ministry that’s been really effective comes from a team, and we’ve had a great one. A critical part of that has been one of the best secretarial staffs on the planet. Thanks, my dear friends!

Okay, that might be an overstatement.  This isn’t: Missing people is a byproduct of some of the best things in our lives as human beings. It is perhaps possible to live without this experience, but I don’t think it’s possible to live well!  To live well, in my view, necessarily involves things like love and living in community, which always involve risk.  To experience community means exposing oneself to hurt and the costs of immediate pain, but it also means the long term risk certainty that the bonds of love will someday expose us to the experience of missing people, what we call all the feelings associated when we can’t be with those whom we have grown to love.

Can you blame me if I’m thinking about this a lot lately?

It sounds like the downside of loving people.  (It certainly feels like the downside sometimes.)  In reality, missing people is just a check.  It’s a little bit of feedback for your heart, letting you know that you’re actually connecting with people.  It lets you know that you’re taking community seriously, that you’re opening your heart to the people around you, or at least you have in your past.  It does pose the risk of the future, though, and tempts us to close our hearts to new relationships, lets we feel the hurt again.  Accepting the reality of missing people opens us up to the possibility of the future, though.  It lets us see not just the costs, but the possibility of how people can touch us and affect us.   Missing people shows us that we really do value people, that we are giving to and receiving from them on a substantial level.  It is, on some level, a measure of our willingness to expose ourselves to pain for the sake of community.

I’m in this stage right now where I’m already anticipating missing the people with whom we’ve lived in community over the past decade.  It hurts.

But I wouldn’t trade it.  This is the way I want to live my life.

As many of you know, Kelly and I have been searching for a place where I might partner with a church and contribute more substantially through preaching.  We believe that we have found such a place in the Cedar Lane Church of Christ in Tullahoma, TN, and have agreed to join their ministry staff in the next couple of months.  Thus, it is with many mixed feelings that I must resign from my position here at Pleasant Valley.

Pleasant Valley has been such a good home for me, and for my family.  Your love,  encouragement, and support has been such a great blessing, and God has used your faith and character to shape me.  For the past eleven years we have lived together in community, under the Lordship of Jesus, and my life has been abundantly blessed by your friendship.  We will miss you all very much.

This church is poised to do much good for the sake of God’s kingdom, as I testify that you have constantly striven to do as long as I’ve known you.  You are passionate for the Lord, and you share the love of Jesus with the world around you.  In a thousand ways I have been the recipient of that love, and am fully aware that I have been given much.  As Kelly, Micah and Izzy and I transition into a new phase of our life, we ask that you please pray for us, that we may give love as freely as we received it here.  My prayer for you will be the same, recognizing that all of us surely fall under the words, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded.”  May God be with you, and to God be the glory.

Grace and Peace,

Steven Hovater

What most people don’t realize is that board games are experiencing something of a renaissance now, and there have been some very creative games developed over the last ten years or so, games created and marketed on a smaller scale but which, thanks to the friendly Internet, are readily available anywhere on the planet. If you’re a little adventuresome, you can get into all kinds of fun. Before I give you my list, though, I need to tell you why I love games.

Communities are built by lots of different factors. Common purpose and language are major factors, as is our old friend common experience. That comes in a lot of different forms over time, including the common experience of tragedy and victory, or change and challenge. Certainly those are all poignant moments, each instance of which can be independently significant to a community’s formation and understanding of itself.

Underrated, though, is the consistent experience of common play together. We sometimes fail to value how playing together, in all the forms that can take, shapes and deepens the bonds between us. When we play together, we create patterns of understanding each other, grooves of being. I begin to understand my friends boundaries, the way they communicate, and what moves and motivates them.

Of course, there are a lot of forms of play. Games, physycal, strategic, or intellectual, can play a part, as might dancing or shopping (you know who you are). Certainly board games are just a subset – not any kind of magic community building bullet. Each community just has to find the forms that work best for it.

For us, we’ve had a ton of fun playing the games below with our amigos. I thought it’d be fun to make a list like this, since these are perhaps a little unusual.

1.  Carcassonne is a fun little game that is part puzzle, part cutthroat strategy.  The learning curve isn’t too bad at all, the game is very balanced, and you can go through a game easily in a half-hour.  That means you usually have time to play a few rounds, which means more chances to win.  It’s probably Kelly’s favorite of all these games.  She is absolutely brutal as a farmer.  There are some expansion variations available, and they’re kind of fun, too.  I think the original game is enough to keep us busy for a while though.  This game opened us up to a lot of different strategy games we wouldn’t have tried before.

2.  The Settlers of Catan might be one of the best of the newer breed of strategy games.  It’s got a tremendous upside: It’s easy to learn, lots of room for strategy to minimize the effects of luck, and some mechanisms (variable board, for instance) that change the game enough that it can feel really different each time you play it.  It does take a bit longer for each round (2 hours if you’ve played before),  and the game as it comes can only take four people.  You can buy an expansion pack so that six can play, and should, but that increases the cost a bit.  This is an extremely fun game, and has a pretty addictive element.  I’m almost always up for a round of this.

3.  Munchkin is perhaps the quirkiest of the games I’m posting here, and perhaps the riskiest as well.  It’s a role playing card game, with an odd set of rules that seems to always change.  Boring people should not play this, but if you have some friends with a little extra imagination, it can be a terribly fun game.  It takes a while, and every time we play it feels like we have to make up our own rules.  Nonetheless, I like it a lot, and Kelly feels sort of “eh” about it.  The best thing about it comes near the end, as there are almost always climatic contest to see who is going to walk away the winner.  There are a lot of extensions to this game, and I appreciate the wit of the creators.  I should note that you might want to censor this game a bit though, as some of the cards can be a little sketchy.

4. Pandemic.  Okay, this is an extremely fun game, but for different reasons.  The biggest quirk is that the players (up to four) don’t compete against each other, but with each other against a set of diseases that threaten the world.  Everybody’s on the same team in this game, so it really ends up being a cooperative strategy game.  That’s a very different type of experience, but I have really liked it.  The game last about an hour, is relatively easy to pick up, and gets fairly intense as it reaches the end stages.  It’s remarkably well balanced.  You can adjust the difficulty somewhat, so it’s a game you can grow into as you master the concepts.

Bonus:  I’ve recently picked up a new game, called King Me!, which the jury is still out on.  I like the design and gameplay a good bit, but we just haven’t played it enough yet for this to be “The 5 best games you’ve never played.”  I’ll keep you posted, though.  So far, I do think it’s fun!

So there are my current favorites.  Anybody else want to chime in on a fun game you’ve run across lately?  I’m always up for something new!