Sign Wednesday: The White Board

The White Board is a wonderful thing. I mean wonderful. It is a sign waiting to happen. A blank canvas just wanting you to write important life changing information for the world to see or at least your coworkers. Did you know that when you leave things on a White Board that you are leaving a sign behind? This could be on purpose but most of the time it is out of forgetfulness. I can't tell you how many times I have walked into a room and there was a White Board full of information. Now you can't help but read it. Why? Because it is a sign. You are trained to read signs. Please remember this when you walk out of the room because many time confidential information is often left behind as well.

On to the point. . .

Are you using your White Board to its full potential? Here is how I use mine to keep my team all on the same page.



I get the privilege of leading birth-high school at Horizon. That just basically means that I keep up with a lot of information. The way the board is broken down is into 3 separate sections for 3 separate ministries. IN is the name of our children's ministry, Crew is the name of our Junior High Ministry, and Crash is the name of our Senior High Ministry. Each section is broken down is broken down into the same weeks from above. You will notice that there are 8 slots for weeks. This lets us get at least 6 weeks ahead in our teaching series. Here are 2 pictures to give you a closer look:



Notice the children's department is doing the Elevate series Journey Below the Earth. Junior High is in a series called Order in the Court and is getting ready to do Get Ripe. Senior High is doing a vision series called Whatever it Takes. Also notice that we have printed out the logos for the different series. Why? It just looks better and gives a better feel for anyone who walks into my office. In other words it makes it a better sign. Not all things are printed though to give us flexibility on what we teach. This is very handy.

The other feature of this White Board that I really like is that it is magnetic. I have made magnets with the names of all of the primary teachers or worship leaders for each ministry. We have a team approach when it comes to teaching. I will teach in all ministries in the course of 6 weeks. This also makes it easy to fill in all of the wholes for a given weekend.

Why a White Board and not something electronic or on the web? My team is not ready. It is easy for my assistant to walk in and to know where I am going to be on any given weekend. It is easy for me to walk into my office and read the giant ever changing sign. It also lets students walk in and leave me messages which makes my day.

So if you aren't using a magnetic White Board as a sign of productivity in your office I would encourage you to. It really has made for a great transition in leadership and in organization for me.