Rearranging Chairs

no evidence of cheating on the exam, but because the rules were not followed strictly, these students would have to retake the SAT. To make matters even worse, the school in question is a low-performing high school, one where many of the students don’t go to college. I can only imagine that a few of these students may simply give up rather than retaking the test. I was very frustrated when I read this story. It just seems ridiculous. I wondered about the story behind the story. Did the people who decided to throw out the tests really think they were doing the right thing? Perhaps they knew it didn’t make sense but were bound by inflexible rules. Or maybe they did have some discretion and somehow considered rule-following to be the highest goal to pursue. I don’t know, but from the outside it’s difficult to come up with a plausible reason to support the decision. Are there any ridiculous rules in your church or ministry? What story might a reporter write if they inspected closely? What things are you doing that would seem senseless to an outsider? Do decision-makers in your organization focus too much on following rules rather than ministering to people? As unfortunate as the SAT story may be, the consequences of “getting it wrong” in our ministries is much greater. The longer that your organization has been in existence, the more likely you are to have created rules that don’t advance your mission. And the longer that you’ve been part of the ministry, the less likely you are to notice. I hope this blog doesn’t apply to you, but every once in a while it’s good to take a fresh look. It’s easy to receive my blogs by email. Just sign-up on Feedburner by clicking here.]]>