Preparation and Experience

Proverbs 22:29New King James Version (NKJV)

Do you see a man who excels in his work?

He will stand before kings;

He will not stand before unknown men.

I have been thinking about preparation and experience lately, I have decided that if I had to choose between being prepared, talented, smarter, skilled, or posses natural ability that I would choose to be prepared. I value talent, skills, knowledge, and natural ability, but I've seen proper preparation beat all of them time and time again. Over the past few months on AV gigs, I have been asked to "show someone what I did" because I got a more desired result, seemingly effortlessly.

I would try my best but I knew this was a pointless exercise. I was able to get the desired result because I had been practicing and preparing for years, I spent years learning, years experimenting, years troubleshooting, years failing, failing a LOT,  years reading, years going to seminars, being pushed out of the way so someone else could fix what I messed up, all of this prepared me so that when I approached certain problematic situations, I would be able to solve them quickly.

Sure I can show someone what I did, but why it works and how I knew to do this in that situation cannot be shown so quickly. Showing them what I did does not prepare them to identify why the problem happened, why my actions solved it, or what to do if the first set of actions do not work.

I think about this not just for AV, but for pastors, bankers, lawyers, doctors, to excel at any profession, one must be diligent in their work.

An Exercise in Humility

An Exercise in Humility

So I had an interesting experience today, I attended an afternoon St. John's day service with my fellow Masonic Brothers. A little background, a St. John's day service is a church program open to the public, where Masons, O.E.S. and Heroines of Jericho gather to celebrate St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist. 

This was my first time attending one as a Local Licensed Pastor, in the United Methodist Church so I wore one of my clerical shirts instead of the usual suit, shirt, and tie. One of my Lodge brothers, who is also a Reverend (Baptist), asked me if I wanted to meet the Pastor of the church, I said yes so we went into the Pastor's office. I experienced something I don't get to see often in other Pastors....humility. The pastor of the church we were visiting let us into his office, sat and spoke with us, insisted we sit in the pulpit with him during the program, prayed with us before he went out, and asked both of us to come back sometime so we could preach at his church!!

I had never seen this before because I am used to pastors who "don't want their anointing disturbed" so they have as little contact with other lowly human beings before preaching. I definitely rarely see pastors offer another pastor they just met an hour ago an opportunity to preach! My experience with other pastors is they are protective of "their" pulpits, even regarding their own Associate Pastors. It was refreshing to meet another colleague who was not too proud to have others sit in the pulpit with him and even if it was a courtesy to offer an opportunity to preach, it was a courtesy I had not experienced before. I look forward to meeting more pastors like the one I met today at Hiram Clarke Missionary Baptist Church in Houston TX.