Concentration warning.

When focusing on difficult concepts in job performance, such as trying to appease an interested church member by printing out a summary of all zip codes that attend church regularly, please take note that when focusing so much energy on trying to understand a task that appears to hold no particular value, you may lose some other grounded thinking and you may by complete accident make sundry errors.

Say for example, you discover that as neat as it is to identify attendees via their own personal zip code, you may also notice that the software is not summary friendly, and without your knowledge has taken upon itself to print 272 pages of a full-bodied list of member zips.

If, by unfortunate chance, you are at that exact moment also answering the phone at work, and if, by another unfortunate chance, you happen to be listening to a blind voice speaking broken English, then you may make further mistakes in your multi-tasking.

If , while you are on the phone trying to decipher the question on the other end of the line, you realize that your printer is going AWOL, then, in your panic, you may mistake the printer settings option of 'cancel job' with 'delete printer'. If this happens, please fight the urge to scream, " OH MY GOD. I'VE DELETED MY FREAKING PRINTER. I'VE SENT IT INTO CYBERSPACE and OUR TECH MAGICIAN IS OUT OF THE BUILDING.

You can't be sure that the person on the other end of the phone isn't bilingual, and you really don't want to take the chance of insulting the poor soul who is simply calling to ask for some help or directions.

On the other hand, if the person calling is in reality the same person who has called you every day for the last week asking for the same "assistance" such as fuel for his heater, then the damage is minimal and the time it took you to vent may also clear your head enough to realize that it is a rare occasion for someone to use a heater when it is 102 degrees outside, and maybe the caller is not being truthful in his requests.

See? There's a happy side to this- isn't there? Maybe I should read this again and see if I can find it... wait.. oh, yeah. the happy ending is that the Tech magician Did, in fact return and rescue my precious 6L from cyberspace, and the caller did finally reveal himself as the same guy who had called me every day for the last several days. The accent was a last attempt to get some spending money for the fair. Well, he fessed up, and took the time to tell me that I really shouldn't use such flair and language on the phone and he'll just have to seek help elsewhere, like maybe the Baptist church down the street.

Whatever....

Helpful hint from the trenches

I have discovered a way to get more of the congregation involved. This is a problem that touches many churches across the Globe. We want to empower our "lay" people but I find some challenges in that. First of all, I wonder to myself. ......."Lay person?" Do I really want to be one of those? It implies someone who doesn't stand up for their beliefs, someone who can be railroaded, a wimp, weakling, a walrus laying in a slug-yoga posezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

So that is the first problem that I see. Secondly I can say that here, at least it is often a puzzle figuring how to attract people to committee positions. I see reactions such as, "How many teeth must I pull? What do I have to do?" and "How long is my sentence? How long do I have to serve?" The church staff seeks to empower the "lay" people, we want them to see the bright side of being a working part of the big old Church machine. It's fun! or it can be,or it might be, well, maybe, you never know til you try, right? Through time, Churches have tried many methods of inviting lay people to come into the fold. Committee Titles that sound appealing and uplifting have been tried... Administrative Board ( This sounds like you, too can be in charge) and lay leadership ( lead others like yourself to lay- the low energy committee), Church and Family Life ( a picnic for sure) Trustees ( Trust me on this, okay?) and many many others. Fellowship Committee is similar to the Good ship Lollipop, perhaps. Hospitality is bound to be full of kind and hospitable folks... you get my thinking here, right?

If titles fail, sometimes food helps. "Oh, yeah, I'll sign up. That's the one that always serves brownies." or "That's the vegan task force" and " I've heard they offer comfort food and have retreats" Retreats is another story altogether for another day.....

Location location location.... " This committee meets on the first floor right next to the exit" This committee meets in the sanctuary of the Columbarium, where quiet and good ideas meet" etc..
Bottom line is that until today, there hasn't really been a successful way to get people to sign up.

Until today, I said. Until today.

This week has been incredibly popcorned with to dos. I started wearing my life jacket mid week and usually I don't have to do that til Thursday afternoons. So you can imagine how I was feeling, over done and a little swimmy. I got a call from a very chipper parishoner, Mary Lee. "Melanie! Hey! I just got my reminder card for the upcoming Worship Committee!!"
I was thrilled. This was just the news I needed. Some small indication that I had in deed been able to do my job in a timely fashion. She didn't say I got my reminder card for the meeting that happened last week, oh. no.It was a reminder in just the way a reminder should be. on time.
whew.
I replied with relieved excitement. " Yippee!! whew. I'm so glad."
Janie paused. "Um, Melanie. the thing is, that I'm on Board of Trustees."
oh. oh no. uh oh.

I sent out a new set of reminders to the right people, but later realized that this could be a good thing. I mean think about it. Trustees coming to Worship, Worship going to Staff Parish, Staff Parish attending Finance... We could all learn about each other and maybe join other people's groups. Hey. It COULD work. Well, it might. oh shut up.

You may wonder what I did about my mix up? Well, of course I did what any other self respecting Church chick would do. I UN invited Board of Trustees . Simple. You are cordially UN-invited to attend the Worship Committee meeting. What else could I do?
oh. Good grief. So much to learn. and my evaluation is coming up. oh. good grief.