How Long Does It Take?

I have to be honest.  This post is all about that picture.  Since I can remember, I've loved stuff like that.  Cool lighting and theatrical environments really crank my tractor, man.  I grew up in a theatrical family.  I remember many late nights as a real little kid, laying on the floor of the theatre, or hiding between the rows of seats, or crawling around underneath the stage while my dad set lights or ran tech cues until the wee hours of the morning.

In theatre there's an old saying, "The show must go on".  I grew up with that philosophy.  When the curtain goes up, and the seats are filled with people, you gotta be there, man. And you gotta do your job.  I did several thousand performances (looooong before I made a decision for Christ), but that work ethic has stuck with me in my service in church over the past 19 years.

There's another old show-biz saying that I love.  I picked it up when I worked in professional theatre just out of high school.  The producer of the theatre I worked in loved to say, "It always takes as much time as you have".  I still say it myself often when preparing services.  It speaks to doing things with excellence.  If good stuff takes a certain amount of time, and better stuff takes longer, than excellent work takes "as much time as you have".

I don't expect everyone to feel the way I do about doing church.  But if no expense is spared, if no stop is un-pulled, if no sacrifice is too great, if the show must truly go on, for theatrical performances and musical concerts performed for humans; how much more should the same attitude, the same willingness, the same sacrifice, the same effort infuse everything we do for God, and everything we do to connect people to the God we serve?

It only takes as much time as you have...