Tag: organization

Posted in Through the Bible Devotions

More names for a smooth transition

Posted on by William Douthwaite

A “through the bible” devotion from 1 Chronicles 23-27.

More names? Oh, yeah, and lots of them. King David’s reign is coming to an end and his son Solomon is ready to assume the throne of Israel (2 Chronicles 23:1). So David gets his house in order, and the write of Chronicles chronicles all of it for us.

David organizes the Levites for all the work in and around the temple Solomon will build. He organizes the priests to offer up the daily sacrifices. David organizes the musicians, gatekeepers, treasurers, and military divisions. Every name is recorded. Everyone knows their job.

When I was getting ready to retire from full-time pastoral ministry, there were a lot of lists to leave behind for my successor.

  • I updated the membership database.
  • I made sure every member was properly assigned to an elder, and made each elder had a current list of their assigned families.
  • I left a list of all the children and youth members for the youth directors.
  • I complied a list of all the homebound members and the last time I had visited each.
  • I arranged for the welcoming of new members, one last confirmation class, a few baptisms and a funeral.

Just like David, I tried to tie up all the loose ends as new leadership came on board. It turned out to be a larger task than I imagined. Which is why it takes up five whole chapters in 1 Chronicles. I had a lot of that information in my head and on my calendar. I downloaded it all to the church office.

I did a good job. I only got one or two phone calls over the next year about things I forgot to write down for someone else. I’m sure David did a good job, too.

Posted in Home improvement

Another shelf bites the dust

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Just so you know, these are not my shelves.

“What in the world was that?” The crashing sound came from the garage. It almost sounded like someone crashed into the garage door. But the overhead door was open. Maybe the neighbor across the street was working on something in his garage. No, it didn’t look like he was home.

When I stepped into the garage, I saw stuff all over the floor. A shelf had come down off the wall above my workbench, scattering boxes of nails and screws across the floor, dumping out another box of household batteries, and leaving the light, eero (wifi repeater), and echo hanging from wires. And the worst – the plastic box with all my fountain pen ink bottles.

Fortunately, that last box was still closed up. But a bottle had broken open, covering everything in blue ink. I fished out some ink cartridges and converters, and then threw the whole thing away. I couldn’t even tell which bottle of red, green, blue, or black was which.

After I got some better hollow wall anchors at the hardware store, I reattached the shelf and decided to put all the organizer boxes of nails, screws, nuts and washers in a workbench drawer. Lighter things like a can of WD-40, picture hanging hardware, the box of batteries, and some extension cords were fine up on the shelf.

I hadn’t planned on it, but this was a good chance to declutter my workbench area. It’s interesting how stuff accumulates in places around the house. Unless you intentionally declutter, stuff will take over your living spaces. I gathered up various screws, wrappers, rags, packets of seeds, receipts, dog toys and leaches, tools, pens and pencils which accumulated there. Since we enter the house through the garage, this surface is the catchall spot for just about everything.

Clutter happens. Decluttering is intentional. Sometimes I remember. Other times a shelf falls off the wall to remind me.