It Doesn’t Just Happen
When you watch a YouTube woodturning video, a club turning demonstration, someone turning a bowl at a craft fair, or allow your kids to turn their first pen at a local event, it doesn’t just happen. That message you hear for an hour on Sunday mornings isn’t simply spontaneous expository. Each one took many hours of preparation ahead of time.
When we prepare a 30–minute video showcasing a method or introducing a new product, what it can do, and how to use it properly, we will have invested a minimum of 10 hours in scripting, editing, reshooting, adding voiceovers, and captions. Even this simple message, to make it meaningful, requires thoughtfulness, prayer, preparation, and research to make it useful and a blessing to the 11,000 folks who see it each week. It doesn’t just happen.
When you accept an opportunity to demonstrate in public, you’ve just committed to spending time organizing, preparing, and gathering materials for the big day. On the Woodworking Show Circuit each season I choose spinning tops as the best vehicle to demonstrate various turning methods and related products. That meant that I prepared 600 to 1,000 blanks to start the season and more as needed. I made my own dowels rather than purchase unreliable sizes. I sliced ¾” thick disks from 3x3 hickory stock, drilled the center holes, and glued them together over several days.
Turning a top on the lathe, texturing it, and coloring it took less than 5 minutes. I spent more time preparing the blank than turning the final product. But, boy, after 13,000 tops, I got pretty good! I’ve always advised everyone I could that if they wanted to learn how to do something, volunteer to teach a class on that topic. Doing the preparation and the research would teach them much more than they could ever learn from just watching a video on YouTube or reading a book.
That is good advice for anything you want to learn more about.
We are privileged to lead a small group from our church that meets for breakfast at 7 am Tuesday morning at a local IHOP restaurant. The preparation needed for each weekly meeting forces us to dig deeper into the Word than we otherwise would. Our commitment makes us study to prepare. It is a welcome blessing in disguise. Remember that wherever you go, there you are.
Here is my inspiration for this message:
(Eccl 1:12–13 [NIV2]) I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind!
(2Tim 2:15 [NASB]) Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.
(Prov 22:29 [MSG]) Observe people who are good at their work— skilled workers are always in demand and admired; they don't take a backseat to anyone.
