The Use of Checklists in Ministry

Mar 17, 2010

 

      On Tuesday, January 5, I was driving about town making last-minute purchases for our family vacation. While on North Central Expressway a seven-minute radio interview captured my attention. Atul Gawande is a MacArthur Fellow, a general and endocrine surgeon at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a staff writer for The New Yorker, and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. He was giving an interview about his newest book, “Checklist Manifesto,” which seeks to persuade smart people to use simple checklists to avoid dumb mistakes.
      Dr. Gawande says that the great problem in medicine today “is not only issues of ignorance and uncertainty but the real problem of complexity—how much you have to make sure you have in your head, and the thousand ways things can go wrong.” His studies with the airline, construction, and financial industries proved to him that as task complexity increases so does the need for simple checklists.
      This interview confirmed our need for checklists in ministry. Deacons should use them for everything from maintenance, to security, to ushering. The audio-visual guys should use checklists for testing microphones, soundboard settings, video-projection texts, CD and DVD players, etc. Those who preach should use a simple checklist including such things as 1) What does the text say? 2) What does it mean? 3) How does it apply? 4) How can I illustrate the main points? 5) How do I transition from one point to the next? 6) How to I summarize and conclude? 7) What does God want to do in the heart of the hearer? We should use checklists for every component of our morning service, so that unnecessary glitches don’t derail our worship. And we need to work as a team in using those checklists.
      The problem with checklists is that smart people don’t want to use them. They feel their knowledge, experience, and instinct will keep them from making critical mistakes. Gawande says we have a hard time admitting weakness, and need to admit that we are fallible.
      I drove to Barnes and Nobles to purchase my copy of The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Done Right. When I got home I discovered that our family had missed the first day of the vacation, because I failed to double-check the itinerary. My wife had to buy new plane tickets and give an explanation to the resort. I had to confess my need for a simple checklist.  
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      checklist manifesto bookOn Tuesday, January 5, I was driving about town making last-minute purchases for our family vacation. While on North Central Expressway a seven-minute radio interview captured my attention. Atul Gawande is a MacArthur Fellow, a general and endocrine surgeon at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a staff writer for The New Yorker, and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. He was giving an interview about his newest book, “The Checklist Manifesto,” which seeks to persuade smart people to use simple checklists to avoid dumb mistakes.

      Dr. Gawande says that the great problem in medicine today “is not only issues of ignorance and uncertainty but the real problem of complexity—how much you have to make sure you have in your head. And think about it, there are a thousand ways things can go wrong.” His studies with the airline, construction, and financial industries proved to him that as task complexity increases so does the need for simple checklists.

      This interview confirmed our need for checklists in ministry. Deacons should use them for everything from maintenance, to security, to ushering. The audio-visual guys should use checklists for testing microphones, soundboard settings, video-projection texts, CD and DVD players, etc. Those who preach should use a simple checklist including such things as 1) What does the text say? 2) What does it mean? 3) How does it apply? 4) How can I illustrate the main points? 5) How do I transition from one point to the next? 6) How to I summarize and conclude? 7) What does God want to do in the heart of the hearer? Indeed we should use checklists for every component of our morning service, so that unnecessary glitches don’t derail our worship. And we need to work as a team in using those checklists.

      The problem with checklists is that smart people don’t want to use them. They feel their knowledge, experience, and instinct will keep them from making critical mistakes. Gawande says we have a hard time admitting weakness. We have to assume we are fallible, even as experts.

      I drove to Barnes and Nobles to purchase my copy of The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Done Right. When I got home I discovered that our family had missed the first day of vacation, because I failed to double-check the itinerary. My wife had to buy new plane tickets and give an explanation to the resort. It cost us a considerable amount of money, not to mention the full day of vacation. I had to confess my need for a simple checklist.  

 

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