During one of our breaks from pastoral ministry, I learned to drive a school bus. It was definitely an interesting experience. When I was about to complete the season, another driver commented that I had lasted very well on the worst run in the city. I picked up inner city kids and took them to school. Most of them came from difficult situations, but I tried to find ways of connecting with them and encouraging them.
As I was taking my training for my Class 2 license, which you need to drive a bus, the instructor walked me through a detailed list of what to check each morning to ensure the bus was safe to drive. This is not unique to driving busses; truckers have a similar pre-trip check to do. Usually this is done with a memorized checklist, but when I was later driving bus for a different company, they had a specific checklist I had to go through and sign each morning.
Checklists help you to make sure you remember to check all the important things. This applies to many places in life.
I go through a mental checklist most evenings before I head to bed:
- Is my lunch prepared?
- Have I laid out my clothes for the next work day?
- Did I brush my teeth?
- Did I remember to take my medications?
- Did I set my alarm?
- Did I plug in my phone?
The list helps me to remember what I want to remember.
Checklists can help you to train new volunteers at church. Checklists are doubly useful in training, both for the trainer and the new volunteer. A checklist ensures the trainer knows exactly what training needs to take place. The checklist will remind them of what paperwork needs to be filled out, or what activities need to be practiced. The new volunteer can also be provided with a checklist to remind them what needs to be done.
Let’s pretend you are training a new worship leader. You can have them work alongside a current worship leader like an apprentice for a few weeks. The leader can make sure they are following the current checklist, a copy of which is then provided to the new volunteer. The checklist could look something like this:
- Get the theme and scripture from the speaker for that Sunday.
- Choose 5 songs that fit into that theme.
- Sort/find the music for all musicians that will be leading worship with you.
- Send the music titles (and music sheets) to all the worship staff and volunteers on your team.
- Practice the music yourself.
- Arrange practice time and practice with team during the week.
- Arrange for all the team to come early on Sunday to do Sound checks
- Etc.
Create lists according to the tasks that need to be done in each role, and encourage new volunteers to add to the list as they notice things that may have been missed.
I use a checklist like this in creating my sermons. I have a fairly long list that has certain comments and questions that help me think through my sermon from every aspect I think is important. Here are just a few things on my sermon checklist:
- Who is the original audience?
- How will this appeal to the 12-year-old boy in the pew?
- What practical application steps can I suggest?
- What are questions this scripture answers?
This list reminds me of what I have found to be important in the creating of a sermon. Some of them remind me of certain steps in my research. Other items remind me how to develop a good application at the end of the sermon. This is a list I have slowly compiled over the years, adding or adapting items as I discovered more steps I wanted to remember to use.
Checklists need to be open to adjustment. Sometimes a good book will encourage you to add another step. Over time some steps may be eliminated if they become irrelevant.
Checklists are a great tool to become better at what you do, to develop consistency, and to train new volunteers.
I’d love to hear about how checklists have helped you.
Keep looking up!
Andy
Elevate with Andy 