"Re-planning" your events for the year

1 Corinthians 10:23-31

"Everything is permissible"--but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"--but not everything is constructive.

Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.

Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it."

If some unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience.

But if anyone says to you, "This has been offered in sacrifice," then do not eat it, both for the sake of the man who told you and for conscience' sake--the other man's conscience, I mean, not yours. For why should my freedom be judged by another's conscience?

If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

The summer is a time to look forward to the multitude of activities and events for the upcoming year. For many schools, these are the major milestones that must be completed to make the year a success (we'll talk what "success" is separately).

Hopefully, before we plan the events we have taken some time to reflect on the past year to see if they had the impact we thought they would.

As we get ready for the next year and the many things we do to promote the school and to raise awareness and funds for the school, I would suggest putting all of the events through a rigorous evaluation. This type of "re-planning" could help to focus and refine, or it could raise the question, "should we even do this again"?

Journalists have to answer the questions: who, what, when, why and how? It might be a good place to start with asking a few of these.

Who? What is the primary audience for the event? Who do we want to hear from afterwards that this was a wonderful experience?

Why? Is it for fund-raising, friend-raising, awareness-raising, or for fun? This is probably the most important question to answer because everything flows from the event's purpose. Work hard to clarify this. The clearer the goal, the more likely you will hit it.

What? Here we must keep in mind the admonition of scripture. To paraphrase Ro. 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the ways (event types) of this world, but be transformed (and transformational) by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will. This means that we must remember that the Lord cares deeply about what we do to raise funds; don't fixate on what someone else did just because "it worked".

How? Our Lord deserves excellence in all things. While we have limited budgets, we should not do anything in a shoddy way that might confuse the beauty of the Gospel that is central to our work. It is better to do something small, but very well, than to have a large event that is poorly done, but gets the numbers.

When we ask these hard questions, God is pleased to re-focus our efforts and lead into paths (events) that honor Him while blessing donors and providing for the needs of the school.