Dehydrated Ministry

I did my 20 mile run yesterday afternoon at probably the hottest part of the day. That’s never a great idea, but I considered that the high was 72 and that I was running in the shade, that I would be fine. I had water to keep me cool, gatordade and power bars to give me energy, but in the end I still cramped up. My problem was probably due to the fact that I hadn’t had enough water and had been dehydrated most of the day…you can’t hydrate on a run when you are already dehydrated. I needed to be better prepared.
I think there are many times where we try to have a program filled with different components (games, activities, music, etc.) where we weren’t prepared, so in the midst of it we try to wing it. It could be something like instructions to a game, a prop for a talk or a song for worship. And instead of saying, “We just aren’t prepared” we force it on the group. Sometimes the best thing to do is just cut it (if possible) from the program. When you aren’t prepared it shows and in ministry it’s best to have one less component in your program than to have people suffer through the struggle. People are willing to forgive but you don’t want it to become a habit.