#fail: Not functioning under authority.

The next mistake I made was when I was a volunteer working for a large church on the East Coast. I was a freshman in college. My family served in kids church almost every week and from time to time my dad would be out of town and I would be in charge for that particular Sunday.

Everything would be fine except to get the supplies I needed I would have to track down someone to open this one closet for me. My dad had a key to it and he would take his keys with him and this would frustrate me to no end. Sooooo one time when he was out of town he left me his keys which had the key to the supply closet. I thought to myself you know if I make a copy of this key I’ll never need his keys again. I think a snake said this to me but can’t verify that. So I took my dad’s key to Home Depot (You can do it we can help) and made a copy and didn’t tell him, it was only a closet key.

What I didn’t know is that key was a master key to the whole campus. The parsonage, the college, the house key to many of the professor’s homes. Somehow to this day I still don’t know one of the guys in my dorm figured out that I had a master key and he stole it from me and made a copy of my copy. The only difference was he used his copy to steal some AV equipment from the church. When asked how he gained entrance he said I gave him a key. Needless to say I was shocked and had a lot of explaining to do to some very, very angry administrative types. They nearly had to re-key over 3,000 doors all because of one key to one little closet.

I learned a very valuable lesson. When you take authority that isn’t yours or you assume a level of authority you shouldn’t bad things happen. To be part of a team you need to know how to function at the level of authority God has given you and be ok with that.

One of the best books I have read on authority is The Tale Of Three Kings. If you haven’t read it, it is a must read for every Christian.