Planning is a pain
Planning ahead can be a huge pain, but can be a game changer for your ministry.
Recently I spent a great deal of time working on our calender and schedule for the next year. I have had things penciled in on my own calender, but I hadn’t publicized everything to the level I needed too.
I sat down in my office and started preparing things and I realized that our calender wasn’t very balanced. I had multiple trips during certain parts of the year and none during other parts. I had fun and crazy events in one part of the year and nothing like that in other parts. To say the least I realized I need to be planning way ahead, so I can communicate to others why we do the things we do when we do them.
The thing about planning our calender is that it serves multiple purposes.
1. It allows us to be intentional with our purpose for each thing that we do!
Sometimes in ministry we can be tempted to just plan something because we don’t have anything else on the calender. This does not serve a purpose most of the time. We need to be able to explain why we are doing an event before we even put it on the schedule. We should be able to explain how all of our events fit together to provide a full schedule.
2. It allows us to know what is coming up over the next year!
There is nothing worse than having a parent ask you about an upcoming event or summer plans and you have to say, “I haven’t thought about that yet!” My question would be why haven’t you thought about it yet. Sometimes we have to be a little flexible with some summer planning do to other circumstances, but we should still do our best to provide as much info as possible early in the spring time. This will help us as leaders know what to prepare for as well.
3. It allows parents to try to plan vacations and trips around church stuff!
Parents have a tough job. I think we all realize the difficulty of their job. Not only do they have the responsibility of raising their children, but they also have to decide what their children can be involved in. What events they can go to. What trips they can take. We have to let them know way in advance so that they can set priorities for their children.
Every parent will not choose what we think should be the top priority, but if we plan ahead and provide them with the information they need to make the choice then we have put it on their shoulders.
4. It allows parents to plan financially!
This may be the biggest factor in many cases. If we plan ahead it allows parents to plan ahead. If something is too expensive for a family it also gives us and them time to plan an alternative way of getting the money needed to allow a student to be involved. Money should never be what holds us back from having students involved.
We need to plan ahead to make things run smoothly. It isn’t always fun, but it allows for much better communication.