Unscripted!

There seems to be a ministry trend where we put a lot of effort into programming out a service down to the last drop. Programming is great and good planning is important but it's not everything. The programming doesn't own the service. With all of the programming we can miss the unscripted moments. The unscripted moments seem to end up leaving people most changed. God often uses our unscripted moments... those moments where I often cringe and think "ouch... that's gonna leave a mark".

Have you had an unscripted moment lately that made you cringe and think ouch? Those are actually great moments. They are moments to be fully aware of because some of the best things can happen in the unscripted moments.

I have been thinking about this past week of ministry. My unscripted moment of the week was using slingbox at our student service to interact between our campuses during a Q & A. We had a six second delay. If you know programming, six seconds is an eternity. At every delay, yes there were more than one, I would cringe because the transitions were so off. In reality the students loved the unscripted feel and totally engaged in the questions. I am blown away with the awesome questions from our students.

It's super easy, as a leader to get wrapped up in the moments that are unscripted and make us cringe and loose sight of the big win. Overall the night was a big win. The questions spurred on great discussion and led the students to grow relationally and spiritually.

My prayer is that I can be aware of the unscripted moments and celebrate those rather than cringe.