It’s happened many times. Final play of the football game. Your team down by 2 pts. The kicker comes up with a chance to win. The ball is down. The kick is up. It’s off to the right. Your team loses.
Or in basketball it comes down to the last shot. Your team down by one with 2 seconds left on the buzzer and you pass to your player who shoots.. and misses.
In these situations it is so easy to blame the last person who has the chance to win the game. In reality there are countless plays, numerous opportunities that probably occurred during the other 98% of the game that had more of an effect.
A receiver misses a sure thing pass. A penalty costs your team 15 yards. An offensive line allows a sack. The QB throws an interception. Even the kicker misses a field goal.
Or with basketball, how many missed free throws, or turnovers resulted in missed points over the entire course of the game?
There are any number of things that happen over the course of a game, or a program, or a mission trip, or a youth ministry that can make the last shot a necessity. However, most of the time it does not need to be that way.
Here are just a few suggestions that will help to do this.
Be Prepared…Early-If you are having a worship service and the band is playing, make sure you have things like music printed, sound system ready, musicians lined up, slides prepared and the like. And I’m not talking about an hour before, or morning of. If you can, have these things ready to go 1 or 2 days ahead of time. The earlier the better.
Don’t Play the Blame Game – When the games on it doesn’t matter who messed up. It doesn’t make a difference who’s responsibility got dropped. The more time you spend trying to find someone to blame, the more time you are not spending fixing the issue.
Do Better Next Time – It will not all work out as planned. Things will not go as you expect. Sometimes this is a good thing. Learn from your mistakes, make changes and move on.