We wrapped up our first ever community challenge event at the end of June - Mileage Mania. For the entire month of June, we challenged the community to come together and log miles walked/ran/biked towards a joint goal. I had set my expectations where I thought we would likely be and hoo boy was I wrong! Y'all proved to excel far beyond my wildest imaginations.
To be transparent - I thought we would have 8-10 people sign up for the event. I thought we would be able to comfortably reach our 300-mile goal within the month. I even gave some room for stretch goal up to 500 miles, just in case.
We had 16 people sign up for the event. More than double my expectations. We also reached the 300-mile goal only two weeks into the month. By the time all was said and done, we had our 16 participants log a total of 827.4 miles by June 30th! Nearly three times the original goal!
Impressed? No. I was astounded. And humbled. And excited. This is par for the course of the Checkpoint Church community. It seems that no matter where I set my expectations, the community always finds a way to meet those expectations and excel beyond them when it's something that gets them excited.
What does the future look like for events like this? That's an excellent question. I am hesitant to set any kind of time constraint on it. I don't want to suggest we do something like this monthly, or four times a year, or something along those lines. Instead, I want to try to create the best and most interesting events that we can and let the community be excited whenever they are announced. The poison of expectation can snuff out the flame of newness, so let's choose here and now to keep that temptation at bay.
I hope that our next event can get the community even more excited, even more participation, and exceed my expectations even further. May it be so!