May 26, 2026

Business by the Book

Psalm 2:10 …be instructed, ye judges of the earth.

Training is instruction. Many times training makes the difference between success and failure. I remember more than forty years ago that I was asked to be an usher in our church. It was a large church with over 1,000 attendees at each service. I was glad to serve as an usher. The first time I received the offering I remember the head usher pulling me aside after the offering was collected. He spent about twenty minutes training me on the proper technics of passing the plate. He told me how to stand while waiting for the plate, where to look, how to hold the plate while walking in and while walking out of the auditorium.

The head usher instructed me 0n how to walk with the other ushers and how to stand; every move was orchestrated and he was very enthusiastic and clear about the proper way to receive an offering. Over the months of serving as an usher he would pull me aside and repeat his instruction if there was something that he thought was not clear to me. At first I thought it was a little overkill, but after a few weeks it began to make sense. At that church receiving an offering was an event. It was a show of power, eight men walking with purpose, one prepared to pray, the others all in unison concerning the treatment and care of the offering plates. I have never been in another church where receiving the offering was as important and visibly impressive.

What made the difference? To me it was the training, the instruction given about things that many take for granted. As a manager, father, and pastor I can sincerely say that the vast majority of my disappointments in others has been my own failure to properly instruct them.

God’s Word encourages instruction as a way of life. Many today despise instruction. They think they know all that they need to know. I know that in the case of me being an usher for the big church, at the beginning, I would say that I needed no instruction for I had passed the plate many times in various churches. But I would have been wrong, for I did not know the way that they performed their duties as ushers. I needed training even if I didn’t think I did.

Learn to embrace instruction. Every successful person I have ever known has had a great appetite for learning, and learning comes from instruction. Know it Alls, don’t know it all, and seldom rise above mediocrity because they will not receive instruction.

Dr. William Howe