Have you ever gotten sick on Sunday morning?

Yesterday, about 15 minutes before I was supposed to begin our regular Sunday kids service, I started to get waves of nausea. I grabbed the office trashcan in one hand and my cell in the other. I started texting my people and starting delegating. I asked one volunteer to preach my sermon. Another to boot up the media computer. The game lady and worship leader already knew what they were supposed to do, so no need to bother them at all. Within moments I had completely replaced myself. I fell asleep in my office chair waiting for any emergencies. My wife startled me awake a half-hour later and told me to go home. Everything was moving smoothly.

It got me thinking about delegation. There are many children’s ministers who don’t believe they (1) have people to delegate to or (2) need to even bother having someone who could do their job or (3) they feel to bad to ask anyone. But what if you got sick Sunday morning? Some might say that they’d just have to handle it… but that would be dismissing the question. For those of us who struggle with giving away parts of our job… I put that question to you:

Who would do your service if you got sick Sunday morning?

Whoever comes to mind, train those folks. If no one comes to mind… find those folks. Emergencies, illnesses and vacations happen. It just makes sense to be prepared.

This week we’ll be looking at delegation, some reasons we don’t do it, and why we should. Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed for automatic updates.