I was reading this post from Seth Godin, and while he may not have intended it, the post reminded me of a similar issue in the church. "Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then" translates to "We all get lucky sometimes, even when we don't prepare."Take this story of the young man trying to get a summer job. Seth implies that a little preparation beforehand might have landed him the job and a summer's worth of work.
Unfortunately, we in the church do this all the time. We leave things to the last minute (like right before the worship service) or fail to think ahead about the big picture of elements needed for our worship service. The old adage is true: When we fail to plan, we plan to fail. How sad to think that we set God's work up for failure by not planning well.
Sometimes, if not always, appropriate preparation involves leaders enabling others to minister and for them to prepare for an event or service (God knows we can't do it all - When we try to, that is also inadequate preparation).
The same applies for those of us on worship team who fail to practice or review songs before and after the team rehearsal. The team rehearsal is just that - a rehearsal for the team to see how things fit together and mix. Trying to learn a song structure or coming to rehearsal without ever hearing a song before is a lack of preparation (Remember, almost all the songs we do have samples and music charts posted on our Praise Team Resource Page). Those type of activities are for individual rehearsal at home.
While God CAN bless these efforts or lack thereof (He has His own plan and offers His grace to fill the gap), I sometimes think He would prefer not to - He prefers that we would not "make offerings that cost us nothing."
Certainly these are half-hearted offerings.
