By Dr. Franklin Dumond

My 2005 Chevy Silverado now has 266,781 miles logged in its lifetime of service to me.  It primarily lives in my driveway now and serves as reliable transportation inside town limits.  For several years it frequently hauled large boxes of training materials when I traveled around doing 2-3 day workshops.  Trailers loaded with supplies for the annual Mission & Ministry Summit were pulled with ease.

Even with almost 300,000 miles logged, this truck is still going strong.

All in all my tan truck has held up well to the rigors of life on the open road.  It boasts a dented rear fender where a branch blown from a maple tree in the front yard was tossed down the driveway.  A couple of winters ago my wife accidentally struck Rudolph as she was driving one December evening.  He limped off in the darkness so Christmas was not cancelled, but the truck was left with a front bumper that is sort of twisted on the driver’s side.  Because of the low retail value of the vehicle I have determined not to spend a great deal on cosmetic repairs.

One snowy afternoon I thought the windshield wipers sounded funny as they slapped against the snow.  I assumed the frozen accumulations were temporarily impairing normal operations.  From the corner of my eye it also appeared that the passenger side wiper was out of time with the driver side.

As I parked in my driveway I decided to work smarter rather than harder to clear the ice and slush from my wipers.  I pushed the switch to spray fluid on the windshield and turned my wipers on high speed.  I thought by melting the slush and ice I could then use my rapidly waving wipers to toss it aside.

My passenger side wiper made one slow, feeble pass and then simply fell asleep at the base of my windshield.  Remembering my vow to not spend money on my truck unnecessarily, I wondered if it would be practical, or even legal, to operate with only one wiper.

A quick Google search and a couple of e-how articles later I discovered that a flat screwdriver to remove the cover of the mounting bolt and a 13 mm wrench quickly solved my problem.  With the mounting nut securely tightened I now had the luxury of two functional windshield wipers.  This worked so well that a few days later I even pre-emptively tightened the mounting bolt on my driver’s side wiper.

It really is amazing what a little corrective maintenance can do to restore a 266,781-mile truck into working order.  Churches can be that way.  Life cycles can be reversed and new life discovered.  Here’s a short list of those corrective maintenance issues that probably need attention in every church whether that church is new or well-established.

1. Dust and clutter will show up again and again unless some attention is given.

2. Signage, both indoor and outdoors, needs to be obvious if we expect new folks to find their way around.

3. Code language that uses specialized terms or abbreviations must be avoided if we expect new folks to understand what we are doing.

4. Contact information on the church sign, the weekly bulletin and the church web site must be current.

What do you think?  What routine corrective maintenance would you suggest for new or established churches?
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