How To Stop Feeling Unprepared

Last year before I ran in the Baltimore Marathon, my wife and I left with what we thought was plenty of time only to get stuck in traffic a mile and half from the starting line with 15 minutes until the race began.  With no time to spare my wife suggested I get out of the car on the highway and run to the starting line.  I got all my gear together and ran, praying to God that I had everything I needed for the race (my power gels, hat, racing bib, etc.).  I arrived in time, had a good race, but couldn’t help feeling the whole time I was running, “Did I forget something?”
I don’t know about you but there is nothing worse than walking into an evening of ministry feeling unprepared.  You don’t know who’s leading what activity, what the worship songs are going to be, whether or not the giveaways have arrived, do the small group leaders have their questions, did I remember my bible…you know what I’m talking about?  Well, even if you don’t, even if you’ve always been 100% prepared it’s important to create a system and structure that’s going to lower the risk of that ever happening. So what are we doing?

• It starts with making sure people are delegated responsibilities.  Creating roles for people (i.e. activity leader), will give them the responsibility for making sure something is prepared for the evening.  If you want to delegate even more responsibility you can ask people to create, supply and run the game all together.
• It then follows with an agenda.  I know people dislike agendas, but they are important to keep things tight, to keep everyone on board and to help answer that question of, “What’s next in the evening?”  This is something to circulate amongst your ministers (I’ve attached a sample copy for our 7th/8th program below).
• Lastly it follows with a master’s of ceremony.  For our worship we have an on stage mc and behind the scenes mc.  Both are responsible for keeping the flow, both are responsible for making sure people get their stuff in.  The behind the scene’s mc is making sure whoever is leading the game isn’t stopping mid sentence because we are short one pen.  The on stage mc isn’t because we are throwing a show, but he or she is there to make sure the students don’t lose interest, if they have questions they have someone to go to.

This is something that has evolved for us over the years and it’s not quite perfect; however, we find that it’s helped us communicate clearly and never feel as if we are walking in without a clue on what it is we need to do.

What do you do as a leader or a team to help the communication flow through your ministry?

Sample Agenda for 7th/8th grade program