Reflections on Ministry, Part 3

This post is the third in a series of four, reflecting on my two years working as the Ministry Development Intern in the Western Region of the Diocese of Northern Michigan. This week, I decided that it was time to stop being so serious.

For the past two weeks, I've written about the skills I've been developing and about the things I've learned about myself. This week, I thought I would share the conventional wisdom that discovered over the past two years. So, here it is....Fran's Top Ten List of Conventional Missioner/Ministry Developer Wisdom. (Note that some of this is largely personal and some of this is probably good advice for everybody!)

10. Get a good map. The best way to learn my way around a new area is to get a good map and then use it. Repeatedly. I'm still learning shortcuts after 75,000 miles.

9. Get lost on purpose. Sometimes it's a good idea to take the time to drive down a road, just to see where it goes.

8. Audible.com rocks. Driving well between two and three thousand miles per month could be wasted time. The $15 per month cost of an audible.com subscription would be worth it at twice the price. I encountered a number of books that strongly influenced me in the past year, and they were all books that I listened to on my iPod. ("What were they?" you ask. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, and Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortinsen and David Oliver Relin).

7. XM Radio rocks, too. Any device that gives this displaced Boston Red Sox fan access to live Red Sox baseball is worth its weight in gold.

6. ALWAYS carry snacks in the car; make sure that some of those snacks contain protein. Any number of things can happen to change the course of a day, and I am absolutely useless if I am hungry.

5. Remember to eat the snacks. I must eat one of the aforementioned snacks before church every Sunday morning, even if I think I'm not hungry. I recently learned the hard way that it is very difficult to preside and preach when my blood sugar is plummeting rapidly.

4. Make time to read. It took me a while to settle in to a routine. But not reading, for professional development and for fun, is simply not an option.

3. Be early. By now, you might know me well enough to know that being on time is a challenge. (I think that I managed to fool most of you for quite a while, but the above statement is, sadly, true.) However, it's so much better to arrive early - whether it's for a meeting, a service, or lunch. I do whatever I'm doing better when I am not feeling rushed.

2. Just do it. I can be a bit of a procrastinator. (This may qualify as the understatement of the year!) It took me some time to get adjusted to working from home. I also struggle with ambiguous deadlines. The sooner I get a project done, the less I have to worry about it.

1. Snow tires really are better than all season radials in this part of the world. Need I say more?