What drives technical ministry forward? Is it solid dependable equipment? A good vision for the ministry? Servant hearted team members?
I have been reflecting on this lately. With the economic recession budgeting has become more difficult than ever. I am challenged to bottom line my budget to maintain the status quo. That is not my usual approach to the ministry. I look to upgrade equipment before it breaks and use the older equipment in less demanding applications until it no longer works and it is no longer worth fixing. The bottom line approach also cuts down my training budget and I am forced to re-think how to increase the skill sets of my team members.
This church has also been somewhat a victim of the “purchase the best equipment without carefully considering what was truly needed and the maintenance requirements of the system.” So it is expensive to maintain and equipment breakdowns are not cheap to fix. Also, by now we are used to what we have so simplifying would not really provide the results to which the congregation is accustomed.
So I find myself trying to re-cast the vision to uphold quality without being able to upgrade and unable to spend money to invest in training. There are training ideas that do not cost money, but the time commitment to writing the materials is extensive. As I wrote in the “Pacing” post, I usually feel behind and like I am making this up as I go. The whole training model becomes more complex when I consider the diverse skill sets my teams require.
My team members are incredible and we would be seriously challenged to stay running if it wasn’t for them. I regularly find myself blessed by their willingness to put in time and energy working to maintain our aging technical systems. I feel like they deserve more support and feeding from the organization they work so hard to support.
Anyone who has ideas, please comment! I’m going to sign off here for the day and go think of some training ideas and hopefully vision.
