SWITCHING STRATEGIES

Many of you may know that I do fine art photography. But before I fell in love with photography, I was into sketch and paint, taking classes under the tutelage of Ted Luna. Many of my paintings are framed and on display in my husband's office :-).  My medium was oil pastel and then after a few years, I learned to use acrylic. 

So, through the years, I would make artwork using these three media.

This past month, I forced myself to learn watercolour. I couldn't do acrylic nor oil paster for lack of the needed materials. My favourite art store, which had everything under one roof, was a bit far away for us to travel at this time.

I must say, it took many tries, and yes, a full pad of watercolour paper before I could begin to even be happy with what I was doing.  I would make one and feel so depressed because it wasn't coming out as I had wanted it to. I would go to bed, grumpy and sad.

You see, watercolour may look so simple, but I have to say, it was not easy for me to learn because I had to unlearn the techniques I am so used to. And that was indeed the hard part, unlearning. 

Unlearning is hard. 

Unlearning is unpleasant, especially if what you know and do has become intuitive to you. For a the few first tries, I was applying the techniques of either acrylic and oil pastel, which didn't work out at all.

And then I finally got it! I finally was able to apply the proper techniques, and produce a satisfying piece.

This makes me think about MINISTRY and perhaps, even life.

Nowadays, what we are used to doing doesn't work anymore. Yet we keep on forcing it, resulting in disappointment and frustration. And we wonder, "where are we doing it wrong?" 

While many of our strategies worked so well pre-COVID days, we are in a very different situation where we need to really rethink how we do things. We have to unlearn a lot of things, and it is difficult because many habits and ways of doing ministry have become instinctive or second nature to us. On the other hand, many of these ways and strategies have worked so well before that it is unthinkable that it won't work now. Think again.

It is quite obvious what we need to do, really.

Only when we are willing to unlearn, in order to re-learn, can we find ourselves in a better position, satisfied and happy with what we are doing.