Who cares if my office is messy?
Does this sound like anyone’s office you know?
I passed by the field of a sluggard, by the vineyard of a man without sense; and behold, it was overgrown with thorns; the ground was covered with nettles, and its stone wall was broken down.
Proverbs 24:30-31
Ministry work is busy. The nature of the work often requires us to wear many hats and be many things to many people. We are simply so busy running from one thing to the next, that it’s easier to keep the ten things we’re working on right in front of our faces, so we can bounce between them. Unfortunately, this makes our offices pretty messy, and scripture clearly has an opinion about that. In the verse above, the author goes so far as to call the owner of the field above a sluggard and a man without sense. Yikes!
We don’t need scripture to tell us this though. We intuit it practically. A while back, my wife climbed into the passenger seat of my truck and was greeted by some old water bottles, a bag with some soiled pants (my 3 year olds…not mine…), old McDonald’s wrappers, and some paperwork that hadn’t made it inside yet. She looked at me and said, “Jon, I don’t feel welcome in your truck.” Messy spaces feel a certain way to the people who enter them. They feel unwelcoming. A messy office says to the visitor, I didn’t care enough to be ready for you.
Now, this post is not really just about cleaning. It’s about cultivating a vineyard that produces fruit. If the steward of the vineyard above simply cleans up his field, that’s a good thing, but it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s going to grow any grapes. He needs to cultivate the land. Remove the weeds. Fertilize. Prune. You may look around your office and think, it could use a bit of tidying, but I want you to go one step further. Ask the question: What should this space be? Look at it with fresh eyes to consider how you may need to transform the space to better serve your parish.
I once inherited an office that had 3 desks, a massive filing cabinet, a bookshelf, and several boxes of various materials stacked up in the corner. It’s important to me to be able to meet with parishioners, so I had to move all of that furniture out to make space. As I refreshed my office, an amazing thing happened. Our office admin realized it was time to tackle hers. Then our finance director quickly followed suit. The prophet Isaiah says,
I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
Isaiah 43:19
God wants to do something new. He is endlessly creative, and when we tap into that life-giving Spirit of newness in service of the Kingdom, it’s contagious! It gives permission to those around us to listen to the voice of God saying to them, “Do a new thing!” Eventually our entire staff began to brainstorm about our places and spaces, and we began to organize them to optimize our work and suit the needs of the parish.
ACTIONABLE STEPS
If you want to start today, download this PLANNING SHEET.
Begin with the ideal section. Think about what your space needs to be. Dream big! Do you need a giant whiteboard? Do you need a microphone to record something awesome? Do you need a greenscreen? Maybe you need the Cadillac printer, or a sectional couch. Whatever it is, write it down.
Then, move on to the reality section. Write down the way it is now.
Finally, identify the things that need to happen to move you from the current reality to your ideal situation. This might mean throwing away some old paintings or statues that were donated in the 1960s. It’s highly likely that you need to throw away a bunch of resources that are out of date and haven’t been touched in years. Maybe you need to donate a desk to Habitat for Humanity to make space. Perhaps you need to schedule a crucial conversation to let the funeral committee know that their materials are going to be stored somewhere else. Write all of these steps down, and then schedule every conversation and action item into your calendar.
Before you know it, you’ll be doing a new thing, and others will perceive it.
