I recently had a conversation with someone that I found to be quite profound and a great reminder of why I do what I do: plan events. I had the chance to share with her my heart and the passion and purpose with which I approach planning events. For many years though I thought of event planning as just a job and that I would go to college, get a degree, and start my career. It wasn’t until I had been planning events for seven years that I discovered my true calling or passion was actually the very thing I had been doing all those years. I did not discover this while I was running an event or up to my eyeballs in details planning the next conference. I discovered this by going to a concert as an attendee and taking it in. My purpose in going to the concert was ultimately because I was going to be planning a conference for that band in a few short months and I wanted to know what to expect. When I showed up I realized that God had other plans for me that night. As I sat in the audience and I looked around at everyone whose life was being impacted, I felt like God said, “This is why you do what you do. This is why I gave you the gifts and abilities that you have so that you can lay the foundation by planning the details of the event so that the speakers and artists can focus on what I want to do through them to impact the audience.” I approach planning events as an act of service to the speakers, artists, and attendees.
For those of you who are Christians that probably makes a lot of sense to you. The same is true for all types of events. As event planners, we lay the foundation with all the details we plan so that the speakers/artists can get up on that stage and share their message that hopefully changes the audience, helps them grow and learn new things, and impacts people.
One thing I shared with this young lady was that it is important that when you are running an event, that you take a couple of minutes to step into a session and see the impact it is having on the attendees. Everyone will be fine without you for a couple of minutes. Turn off your radio. Silence your cell phone. Take 5-10 minutes and enjoy your hard work and maybe you will get something out of what the person on stage is saying.
Take a moment and let me know why you plan events? What is your heart and passion? What advice do you have?
Winn Events is a full-service event planning & management company that offers flat-rate pricing and customized packages. Check out http://www.winnevents.com/ for more information.
November 10, 2009 at 9:52 pm |
Great post, when I was planning Sundays/Events for kids at IBC I would be running around like mad trying to get things done. Every now and then I would get to stop and take it in, and it was great. To see how God was using me was truly humbling. Thanks for allowing me to reflect on that!