MinistryMedia.org

We often think about backup equipment. What would we do if a projector bulb blew. Is there another on the shelf? If the laptop died, do I have a copy of my presentation that I could put on another machine?

Tonight I had to fill in for a person. He received a call that his father was dieing. He has been battling cancer and he had to go.

So, I step in to run a video conferencing class. Now this is not traditional ministry media, but it is a ministry and it does have buttons. So, I’m on the hotseat trying to get all of this to run.

How prepared are we for loosing a person? Do we know the passwords and the secret tricks to keep the stuff running? I had to copy some settings from his laptop to mine before he left. And if he wasn’t able to give me the passwords - I would have been sunk.

For a few years I worked a church where only one sound guy knew everything. This wasn’t by design - it was by necessity. There were just too many things to know. He didn’t have time to write them down. And no matter how often I sat with him and watched his every move, he would do something or go to something that I had never seen before. He had been there for years and was irreplaceable.

The human element is irreplaceable. For contingency sake, make sure that you are at least somewhat prepared…