I have been fortunate to drive reliable and pretty nice cars ever since I’ve been driving. However, there have been times when I have needed to borrow someone else’s car. In a few of those times those cars have been less reliable and not so nice. I never minded much since at the time I was simply grateful to have something to get me from point A to point B. However, it makes me nervous when I’m driving a car that has a broken speedometer or even worse gas gauge. I don’t know if I am driving too fast and going to get a ticket or if in the next mile the engine will sputter and I’ll all of the sudden be stranded. Even in my own cars it the gauges have been important.
One time I was driving on a trip from Houston, TX to Abilene, TX (375 miles one way) and about an hour into my trip (still in Houston) my check engine light came on, followed by my oil light. I was able to pull over and check my oil, only to find out my oil was leaking out my engine. Since I was in my early twenties I decided not to let something so little derail my trip, so I stopped every hour and put in more oil. Without those lights I would have never known and my engine would have blown and been destroyed.
I sat in a staff meeting at my previous church where I was reintroduced to a concept that held my attention. We were a large church going through a non-crisis transition. There were many feelings about from members, leaders, and staff about what was taking place. As we entered that meeting, our new executive minister took us through the idea of needing a “dashboard.” It wasn’t a new concept to me, but I definitely needed the refresher course. On many things that we were having concerns about and discussions regarding it helped tremendously to have some facts to help steer the feelings in an appropriate way. The “dashboard” lights had been turned off and we needed to turn them back on a pay attention.
Practically, the dashboard becomes counting people, real contribution numbers, whether or not baptisms and salvations are occurring. There are other kinds of gauges on the dashboard as well.
-To Be Continued...
One time I was driving on a trip from Houston, TX to Abilene, TX (375 miles one way) and about an hour into my trip (still in Houston) my check engine light came on, followed by my oil light. I was able to pull over and check my oil, only to find out my oil was leaking out my engine. Since I was in my early twenties I decided not to let something so little derail my trip, so I stopped every hour and put in more oil. Without those lights I would have never known and my engine would have blown and been destroyed.
I sat in a staff meeting at my previous church where I was reintroduced to a concept that held my attention. We were a large church going through a non-crisis transition. There were many feelings about from members, leaders, and staff about what was taking place. As we entered that meeting, our new executive minister took us through the idea of needing a “dashboard.” It wasn’t a new concept to me, but I definitely needed the refresher course. On many things that we were having concerns about and discussions regarding it helped tremendously to have some facts to help steer the feelings in an appropriate way. The “dashboard” lights had been turned off and we needed to turn them back on a pay attention.
Practically, the dashboard becomes counting people, real contribution numbers, whether or not baptisms and salvations are occurring. There are other kinds of gauges on the dashboard as well.
-To Be Continued...
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