30 Oct Are You Relying on You or the Holy Spirit?
Planning can be difficult and time consuming. We plan our our meals, our kid’s sports schedules, and vacations. Everything seems like it needs to be planned. And then those couple of pesky things that were not planned always pop up and ruin the plans that we just made!! Grr. Sometimes it is easier to understand why so many people prefer to fly by the seat of their pants. As much as we plan, there always seems to be one more thing, and no matter how hard we try, our plans never seem to go as planned. So why bother?
Well let’s stop and think why we plan in the first place. When we take the time to plan something, it means that it is important. It’s worth the time it takes to think it out and make the arrangements so that it goes by smoothly. At the very least, it means that it would be more painful not to plan whatever it is then it would be to take the time to plan it. Sometimes the task of planning our weekend services seems…daunting to say the least. How is it possible for you to have every aspect planned out? This then begs the question…does planning out your weekends leave more or less room for the Holy Spirit to lead?
Well first let’s tackle the fact that weekend services are worth your time planning. Anything you take the time to plan goes much smoother and you save time on the back end. It also leaves less room for errors and awkward moments which are two things that will make guests not give your church a second chance. In fact, every church has planned out their services to a certain extent. Every week you meet the same time, usually in the same room, you play the same number of songs, and have the same length of teaching. Now the church that I grew up in, that was about all the planning that went into it before Sunday morning. I remember mornings where the piano player just didn’t show up so we all had to sing acapella. We just hoped the person who started the song hit the right note. Then as the preaching time came, we would pick right back up at the next verse in whatever book we were studying. I am not quite sure if there ever was a rhyme or reason for what and how we did things. Now to those of us who are pastors or have been raised in church, that might not seem so bad to us. That kind of a service flow might even seem normal. But let’s be honest, winging church services is never going to bring about the kind of life change that is possible through your weekend services. Guests in your church don’t like awkward and they don’t like surprises. By you taking the time to sit down and plan out your services, your preaching, your first impressions, your music, and your transitions, you show your guests and the people in your church that they are valuable to you!
Another awesome benefit to planning out your services is that they are actually better quality too! Wow, imagine that! Now some might say, woah hold up a second. I am completely fine with not planning every detail because if I did, I wouldn’t be allowing any room for the Holy Spirit to work. This is a valid concern. I completely agree that we should be allowing the Holy Spirit to lead and direct our church services. But let me pose this question to you then. Do you think our churches would be more or less Spirit led if instead of waiting till Sunday for the Holy Spirit to give direction, we took the time over the course of a couple of weeks to prayerfully go through and plan our services? I would argue that by planning in advance you are allowing the Holy Spirit to lead and direct more! There is nowhere in Scripture that says the the Holy Spirit must guide your heart only on short-term notice. Nelson Searcy in the book Engage outlines more reasons as to why it’s important to begin planning early and helps you to figure out what messages you should preach when, and how to plan out your worship and preaching so that you can have maximum impact. If you would like more info on how to go about doing this, grab yourself a copy of Engage or check out our Ministry Library video summary and workshop.
