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Three Days in a Canoe
How Excess Baggage Can Impact Your Mission!| posted 11/02/2007
The challenge many organizations face today when it comes to knowing what to maintain and what to discard to accomplish their mission can be clearly illustrated by a canoe camping trip I took with my son this past summer.
The night before our trip, I did the exercise everyone who heads to remote or wilderness areas does: an item-by-item run-through of our gear. I considered the type of trip, what kind of conditions and weather we were likely to encounter, every function we needed to fulfill, how long we'd be out, and how comfortable I wanted to be—or how much discomfort I was willing to tolerate.
I've done a fair amount of high altitude hiking and knew the importance of packing light. (When you're gaining a thousand feet of altitude in the course of a half mile, at 12,000 feet, you learn quickly to carry and live with less.)
But this was my first canoe camping trip where everything we needed for the trip would be in dry bags. Compared to a backpack the space was absolutely luxurious. So as I put our gear together, I found myself relaxing a bit. A small gas-fired lantern and a candle lantern went in. An extra can of fuel might come in handy. I included a wood saw (even though the saw on my Swiss Army Knife had done a fine job in the past of breaking down fallen branches for a fire); water purifier; three gallons of water and 10 juice boxes; two beach towels instead of one; a large can of ravioli just in case we got super hungry; two extra changes of clothes; deodorant (Do a dad and son REALLY need it when no one else is around?); and an oversized first aid kit. On it went. Ounce by ounce, pound by pound, the weight climbed.
I got all our stuff—tent, cooking gear, food, and the assortment of items you need to survive in a range of conditions—packed tightly into several duffle bags. It didn't look like very much until you picked them up. I had a sense as I loaded the bags into the car that we had more gear than we needed. "Still, we will be in a canoe," I thought. "No big deal."
>Too Much Baggage
No matter what stage of the journey you're in, your church or organization has baggage, too. How much gear your organization or church is taking with it to accomplish its mission will have a significant impact on the pace you work at, your capacity to adapt to changing conditions, and even your effectiveness and impact in today's culture. Insuring your organization is not weighed down with low value and unnecessary baggage is a responsibility leaders must not run from, but enthusiastically embrace.
