Learn to do big things by doing small things.

Do you like to experiment?

I am a serial experimenter.

I spend time trying to figure out how things work. Sometimes, what I learn affects the larger way I work. At other times, my experiments finish, and I store what I learned in my brain if I need something in the future.

Experiments can be handy.

I want to share with you how little things learned can be helpful for big things. I also want to talk about the dangers of experiments and how to avoid them.

Small Things for Big Things

Have you ever worried about a project that might be too big? One of the issues going on here is a lack of learning about the small things that might be necessary. The funny thing is, it can be in the beginning or at some point in the middle. It might be a reluctance over how to finish.

That's why I love starting larger projects from the end.

Not only can it be strategic, it also helps identify the places of learning. It can show us potential bottlenecks. Another benefit is that when we do hit a point where our strategy or tactics might not be working, we can address the specific step. This helps us not to throw out the whole plan or ignore the objective we see to be mission-critical.

I've done this enough that I can anticipate potential bottlenecks before I hit them.

I then realize I can find a safe project, one without consequences, to try to learn it better.

I'm working on my next big book. It's all about creating a growth game plan for normal-sized churches. I know from my last book that I had one thing I wasn't satisfied with. The service I used to format my books (Reedsy) couldn't allow me to create tables in my manuscript.

I think in tables. I communicate in tables. I love tables.

I wanted to figure this out before I started typesetting my next book.

Remember the inconsequential project? This week, I bundled together a few emails I wrote to my normal-sized church email list. I wrote an intro and started learning to use the native Amazon book-builder tool. It takes images better than Reedsy, so I could import a high-quality .png for my tables.

Rather than stressing out while working on a massive project, I did a quick one to learn the skill and know it would work before starting on the new (big) book.

How might this work out in the local church?

You know you have a capital campaign or stewardship season coming up. You realize communication will be critical, but you know you have to learn a system to filter the congregation and send scheduled emails. Not doing this has been an issue in the past.

To learn the skill, you start using the technology to send bi-weekly emails for men's and women's ministry. You learn the filtering and learn how to create an automated sequence.

VBS registrations have always been a pain. It's tough to get registration and payment for dozens of kids. You also want to learn how to save those parents' contact information for your database. Too much will be going on during VBS to learn this. But you realize confirmation is only 8 kids, and you can try out the system with that registration.

Do small experiments before you need the knowledge.

Where this can go wrong.

If you do experiments for the sake of experiments, or if you are always side questing for the sake of experimentation. That can waste time or energy. If you love to do new things, but devote too much attention to it, learn to recognize and stop yourself.

Experiments are always done for a purpose.

Chad

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