Procedures

My household recently added a person to it.

My brother in law moved in for a bit as he prepares to start graduate school. It is our chance to help him out and besides, we love having him over!

It has been interesting to watch as we navigate around one another. We are running the dishwasher more, which means we have to figure out loading and unloading chores. We haven’t yet figured out who is cooking when. So far we haven’t had to fight over the remote control. 😉

Simply adding one person creates so many more places where communication and processes need to be put into place to help the household function at its best.

This is something I’ve discovered in the church, too. It amazes me how many procedures we have to learn/implement in a church with multiple staff.

For example, in my first church, the number of people who touched any particular bill was limited. Almost everything was under my direct supervision, because I placed the orders and opened the mail and indicated the expense line and drew up the financial reports. So I knew how it all fit together without needing a plan written up.

The shift to a larger church means more people are involved from the admin to the assist treasurer to the staff person who  places an order to the finance chair… and we don’t all understand the process in the same way. We together need a system that helps, rather than hinders, our ability to do effective and efficient ministry.

With a lot of new staff, this has been a great opportunity to ask some really basic questions about why we use certain procedures that might have outgrown their usefulness and to explore new ways of doing them. It is also a good time to reeducate everyone on how the system functions.  I’m learning a lot, but it is also neat to see when a process works and all the pieces click.

And the same is happening at home. I think the fresh perspective from our new house guest is helping Brandon and I discover some ruts in our system, do some things in a new way, and better talk about why we do what we do. There are still things we haven’t worked out yet, and others yet to be discovered, but we’ll get there. And with the right “procedures” we’ll be alright.