Click, clack. Click, clack.

My foot distractedly hit the loose metal filing cabinet knob up and down as I directed the parishioner's call.

Once I was off the phone, I looked at it. "Someone should really fix that," I mused as I moved onto my next task.

Each week at my shift as the night secretary for the parish office, I'd inevitably hit the loose drawer handle with my foot and think, "That's really annoying."

Or pull out the drawer to put a file in and roll my eyes that no one had fixed it yet.

This repeated weekly throughout my four years of high school.

I stopped working in the parish office when I went to college, but upon graduation, I returned.

And guess what I found?

The drawer knob STILL hadn't been fixed.

I knew that my return to parish work was only temporary until I found a job in marketing, so I declared that I was only going to fix it on my final day working at the parish, as a sort of weird legacy.

A year later, on my final day...I finally got a screwdriver and fixed it.

And yes, of course I took a picture of the momentous occasion.

Why do I tell you this random story?

Because I'm going to bet there's a "drawer knob" in your parish communications that has been driving you nuts for years.

Something that would be so quick and simple to fix, but instead you keep looking at it and thinking "someone really should take care of that."

Maybe it's a page with outdated information on your website.

Or that brochure that still has the old logo.

Or a form that could be digitized to make it easier to integrate into your CRM.

My challenge for you this week is to simply do that thing.

Don't wait until you leave to make the change, like I did. Do it now.

Because yes, there are a lot of fires to put out in church communications. And tons of big projects to spend your time on.

But sometimes, it's those miniscule aspects of hospitality that matter the most.

Jesus didn't start His miracles with a big, grand healing or raising from the dead.

He started with a simple, deeply human situation, one that easily could have been overlooked as not important enough to bother with.

And I think that tells us that even our small efforts matter to Him, and He can use all of them for His glory.

Plus, you never know - that fix may just be the final little nudge someone needs to take a step deeper at your parish and towards His heart.

For His greater glory,

Emily

P.S. Lest you think it's just you...my current "fix the drawer knob" project is updating my own parish's website header video. It features a priest who went to a new parish two years ago, and it's been on my to-do list to replace that clip with our current parochial vicar for about as long. So I'm going to challenge myself to take my own advice and update that this week - I'll report back next week to keep myself accountable! Feel free to email me too what you plan to do and we can check in on each other next week!