We bought a new copier for the office this week. It's a BizHub Konica, complete with all the bells and whistles like a 3 hole punch, booklet maker, 65 copies per minute, color, fax machine, scanner and more. What a sweet machine. But here's the coolest fact about the new copier: I wasn't even aware that we were purchasing it. What!?!
Let me explain. I remember when we first started the church 5 years ago. My wife and I went to Sam's Club and paid $400 for our first copier. It worked great, but it was too small to keep up with the demands of our growing church.
After two years of growth we desperately needed a new commercial copier but we didn't have the money. Those suckers aren't cheap. Instead of purchasing a new one on credit, I decided to pray and give God an opportunity to do a miracle.
Sure enough - I got a call from a member of our church some weeks later who worked at 30 Rock in NYC. He was standing over a brand new copier that was getting ready to be pushed into a dumpster. He called me on his cell and said, "Dave, do we need a copier for the church." In a matter of minutes I was on my way to NYC to pick up the miracle machine. We prayed. God provided a $15,000 miracle in the shape of that new copier.
Well, as the church continued to grow - even that miracle machine could not keep pace. So, about 1 year and a half ago I spent something like 3 months working with my assistant on picking out a new copier. We ran all kinds of expense spreadsheets and negotiated with a number of companies - we even discussed it at an Elder meeting. We finally settled in on just the right one.
But guess what? The church's crazy growth has now outpaced even our third copier. No problem though - the staff worked together to just get a new one and its actually going to save us a bunch of money.
I love to admit the fact that I didn't have any input in the decision for the new copier let alone the fact that I don't even know how to work the thing. It's a great to have talented leaders around you that operate in the gifts of leadership and administration. It allows me to work in my areas of strength and guess what - the church will continue to grow and we'll probably need another copier in a couple more years.
