Our daughter Luci has a third birthday coming up in a few weeks. We decided to order her birthday party invitations from PhotoWorks. They have some cool invitations and the prices aren’t bad. The theme for the party is ducks (Luci is really into her ducks right now) and we put on the invitation to come for a splashin’ good time. Except I put “splahin” (without the s). I read that thing 20 times before I finally hit submit to place the order. It wasn’t until my mother-in-law got her invitation and found the typo that we realized there was a mistake.

Sometimes in ministry we get so use to things that there can be something really wrong but we don’t see it. Those old beat-up chairs are okay to you and your pastor because you’ve lived with them for 20 years, but they send a red flag to the visitor in your church. That green carpet from the 60’s is fine, after all, everyone is use to it. Everyone except the person who sees it for the first time.

I wish I would have stopped and had an outsider proofread Luci’s birthday card. Maybe I need to get an outsider to walk with me around my church or to observe me in action this weekend.