IF you are seeing this on Monday, then our phone signal was too poor to post pictures from the weekend. Never fear, we hope to drive toward the 21st century later today and post The Weekend Dispatch tomorrow.😍
Evangelism Routing and Scheduling Seminar😊
I sure wish someone taught an Evangelism Routing and Scheduling Masters Class at Bible College. Of course, I would have had to go to Bible College to take the course, but someone should teach it.😍
I am incredibly thankful that we have places to preach and people wanting us to minister in their churches. We could be sitting at home with no one calling, no one asking and no place to go!
We are always amazed and extremely thankful that Pastors keep asking us to preach revival. Without that, we do not need to worry about a schedule at all.
In 1990 I thought if I had four or five churches that wanted revival, life would be perfect. If fifteen or twenty churches wanted revival, I thought I would be on top of the world. Bro. Bill Houston told me then, "Having churches to go to is the easy part, figuring out how to fit them in and keep them all happy is the hard part."
He knew exactly what he was talking about and I was smart enough to know that! Bro. Bill's advice on scheduling was the second piece of advice I had received on the subject. Our Pastor, Bro. Bennie Sutherland gave me the first lesson.
Bro. Bennie said, "Go preach revival wherever you are asked to go. Do not ask God if you should go. If you are called of God, then go when they ask. When you have two or three places wanting you to preach the same week, then start praying to God for direction."
Those two pieces of excellent advice on scheduling were all the training I had. The rest was learned in the school of experience. You might call it a crash course, pun intended.
Experience:
-One thousand miles between Friday night after church and Sunday morning a few weeks in a row will teach you things you did not know.
-3200 miles between two Sundays will bring higher edumacation right to your door.
-2150 miles between Wednesday night after church and Saturday evening while pulling a fifth wheel will open your eyes to the hard truth.
-So will four revivals in five weeks in four states in three time zones. IF you are paying attention, you will learn from that.😍
We chased our schedule all over the USA, zigzagging back and forth for years. We were having the time of our life and would not take those years back if we could.
However, in 2008, when gas and diesel crept to the $4 level for the first time, Pastors started saying to us, "Fit us in when you can, we do not want you to have to drive across the country." That is when we began scheduling like we do now.
We make a long drive into an area and then try to keep our next several revivals less than two to four hours apart. That gives us a chance to rest up and we burn less fuel. It has worked wonderfully for fourteen years.
We now drive fifteen to twenty thousand fewer miles each year to revivals than we did from 2003-2007. That is a huge help!
Here is how it looks in the real world.
-In January, we drove 1043 miles for revival in Livingston, Texas.
-Then we drove 143 miles to Sweeny, Texas.
-Then 396 miles to Bernice, Louisiana.
-Then 268 miles to Denham Springs, Louisiana.
-Then 237 miles to Sebastopol, Mississippi.
-Then 160 miles to Citronelle, Alabama.
-Then 94 miles to Ellisville, Mississippi.
-Then 109 miles to Wilmer, Alabama.
-And finally 265 miles to Colquitt, Georgia.
Even though there are a couple jumps in that list that were a bit larger than normal, the whole itinerary worked out perfectly.
Two weeks ago we made a 744 mile jump to northern Virginia and started the process all over again. We are excited to see what the Lord has planned for the future.
Does that make sense? As my good friend, Pastor Barry Gautreaux says, I make sense when I say it to myself!
Thank you for dropping in today. After I wrote the Mile Marker above, I found a Mile Marker I wrote in 2013 that touches on scheduling, price of fuel and surviving. You might find it interesting.
Davy
