A New Lesson

We have bought a number of homes during our marriage. My Mom and Dad started with a starter home, and then they bought only one more home that they owned until they died. They never moved again. As a kid I had always thought it would be cool to live in different houses.

And now we have.

With each house purchase I learned new lessons. I have said, “There is always a mistake I haven’t yet made in purchasing a house.” At the same time I have had to make sure not to forget old lessons from previous experiences. Through each house buying experience, I have to be vigilant about both new mistakes and forgetfulness about lessons previously learned…through past mistakes.

Experience teaches well, but only as well as the student retains and applies the lesson.

I forgot a thing this week I had learned from experience, not with a home purchase but with a church meeting.

The experience of thirty-five plus years of ministry has taught me how to prepare for a congregational meeting. You start planning the meeting well in advance. Complete reports. Lay the ground work. Help the leaders get up to speed. Prepare the participants so they know what to expect. Publish the agenda.

We had a congregational meeting this week. I was set for it. In fact I had sort of been congratulating myself about how set I was.

The meeting was going great. Lots of positive comments. Lots of unanimity. Lots of forward motion. Experience was paying off.

Until the last item on the agenda.

It had been a late add. It was not that big of a deal, but very little ground work had been laid for it. Questions obvious to arise had not been considered. Leadership, including me, was ambivalent about the outcome.

And so what had been a very positive meeting got a little wonky. There was a split vote. Winners. Losers. Fortunately, the chairman (not me) handled the situation deftly. No limbs were lost.

What had been a very positive meeting left a sour taste in people’s mouth.

Unnecessarily.

This was all because I had not applied the lessons of experience. Here I had been congratulating myself for having put together everything for a great meeting, and because I forgot some basic lessons about meetings, e.g. don’t add to the agenda late, prepare answers for all likely questions, don’t include items about which the leadership is not clear about, I learned what turned out to be a new lesson.

Don’t be so focused on avoiding new mistakes that you forget to apply old lessons.

Again, no real damage was done, but I learned a significant lesson… I hope. Experience is of no help if you do not apply it.

What did you find significant this week?