A spate of recent aviation incidents reminds me of a plane accident many years ago in Portland, Oregon. As the plane prepared to land, the pilots couldn’t tell if the right main landing was locked down. The captain put the plane in a holding pattern while they tried to solve the problem. During that hour of focusing on the problem, the flight engineer kept hinting to the pilot that they were dangerously low on fuel. The captain didn’t respond. The plane crashed. Surprisingly, only ten people out of the 181 on board died.
That’s when NASA hosted a conference on CRM, Crew Resource Management. Of course the captain still had final authority, but he was to welcome the input of his crew and flight attendants. They were encouraged to question the captain if they observed him making a mistake.
Isn’t that a valuable concept we could use in business, in a church, in a home, and in all human relationships?
My children’s father used it with our children in a beautiful way. They were given the right and the privilege to call for a “Family Council” if they had a grievance. Daddy gave up some of his authority, but the rules were clear. They could challenge how this family did things, but not our family’s commitment to obeying God’s Word.
Each child was assigned a chore or two for each day. One of those included doing the supper dishes. One day son John said to Walt, “Dad, I call a Family Council.” John was a junior in high school, but was a valued employee in the Sears Automotive department. So, according to the family rules, we met at the dining table that night after supper. “It’s not fair,” said John, “for me to come home from work at Sears on Tuesday nights at 10:00 to have to wash the supper dishes and pans when I didn’t even eat supper here.”
The whole family agreed: it wasn’t fair. But who would then do the dishes on Tuesday nights? (I, the mother, saw the eyes of the children roll around to focus on me. Who but Mother should take up the slack?) But about that time Ruth spoke up, “O.K., John, I’ll trade nights with you. I’ll do the dishes Tuesday and you can do them on Thursday for me.”
It’s a simple story, but it illustrates, I hope, good “crew resource management,” even with the children in a family. Every Christian does have unique, wonderful gifts with which to serve God.
There are different kinds of spiritual gifts,
but the same Spirit is the source of them all.
There are different kinds of service,
but we serve the same Lord.
God works in different ways, but it is the same God
who does the work in all of us.
A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.
1 Corinthians 12:3-7 (nlt)
Every one of my children were given very special gifts, and it was right to nurture them and encourage them in those gifts. You, too, were given very special gifts, chosen by God specifically for you to use in serving Him. And what a resource that is, helping each other to use those gifts for the glory of God. Are you taking advantage of CRM in your home? At work? At at church? With your neighbors? Why not use such valuable resources to the full, for your sake for their sakes, and for the work of God!