I was visiting a church this past week and I was reminded of how similar all of our situations are as technical artists in the local church. The list of should-do’s is always pushed to the side for have-to’s. Recabling the stage vs. running an emergency line at the last minute to make the service work. Setting up a system that is easy for a new volunteer to use vs. scrambling to get something working at the last minute to make the service happen. Basically anything vs. the last-minute fix to make the service work.
The last-minute fix to make the service work will never go away. It will always pop up. And what I’ve noticed is that we aren’t so great about going back and cleaning up after that hasty fix. And after a while, the pile of unlabeled extra becomes invisible to us. Just a part of “normal”.
At a certain point, all the unlabeled, hastily installed cables will be the source of problems if we don’t stay on top of keeping our areas clean and organized.
What if we built margin into our lives to handle the clean-up after each hasty fix? What if we gave ourselves time to label things correctly and then keep things neat and tidy? How can we set up our teams for success instead of only jumping in when it’s an emergency?
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