What I've Learned About Creative Arts Ministry By Being an Admin Assistant .1

I know this is about the longest title in blog history. But it does the job a title does, describes what is going to be written about. A long while ago I did a blog series on “things I learned about leading worship while being a janitor.” Yes, I was a janitor not even 8 months ago for those of you who didn’t know. This summer I worked part time as an administrative assistant for the creative arts department of Sunset. This was on top of the part time job I do as co-director of the band. I start back at seminary on Friday so I thought I’d share some of what have I learned this summer.

1. Not pressing sort on the copy machine is kind of like coming to a rehearsal without having practiced before.

I used the copy machine often this summer. Kind of reminded me of my days selling copiers out of college. About every other time I used the copier I would forget to sort something that I needed to sort (which is almost everything). This only made for a lot of extra work and a lot of wasted time. I would have to sort everything myself, and that is NOT FUN.

Whenever I don’t practice on my own before a rehearsal (which is never good since I’m band director) it always make more work for me at some point. Practice is always much more labor some because I have no idea what is going on with each song and Sunday mornings take so much more focus because I have to stay buried in my music instead of engaged with the congregation.

Moral of the story: when in doubt use sort and always practice more than you think you should.