Ministry requires flexibility.
Yesterday, something was slightly off in the flow of our service at 8:30. We were trying to teach the church a great new song, celebrate communion, and still leave enough time for a serious teaching on Homosexuality: The Elephant In The Room. We muddled through and I had plenty of time for the sermon, but the flow felt disjointed.
So Chris Macedo, who more than anyone oversees the flow we’re trying to craft, came up to me and said, “We need to change something. I don’t know what it is, but something needs to be different this time.” He was right — which says a lot about his character because he had designed the service in the first place!
So we changed the order of a couple of songs, moved a video from one place to another, and then launched into our 10:00 service. Much better. 11:30 was even better still.
It took some of us realizing that what we were doing could be working better, admitting we might have made some mistakes in planning the order, and then having the flexibility to adjust, adapt, and move ahead.
One Sunday service. A microcosm of what ministry is like in the big picture: figure out what’s not working, adjust, adapt, and move ahead.