Serving People Through Facility Maintenance

by Andrew Pust

A successful maintenance program must begin with a sense of our responsibility to be good stewards of that which God has given us. The requirement that God gives for stewardship is faithfulness. As we apply this to maintenance, our co-workers should be able to have the utmost confidence that we will take care of those things which have been entrusted to us. “Confidence in an unfaithful man is like a broken tooth and a foot out of joint” (Proverbs 25:19). Often a person who is in a maintenance role has chosen that role because of a natural, God-given aptitude for fixing things. That person may be able to clearly see the problem and quickly arrive at a solution or an option that is not readily seen or understood by the person who is in distress. While this is a great skill for a maintenance person to have, competence alone will not result in successful maintenance.

In addition to stewardship, we are also responsible to God to serve others in a spirit of meekness and humility. Jesus said the second great commandment is to love our neighbors as ourselves. When the ability to solve problems is coupled with a sincere desire to serve people, we have a person who will be invaluable to the success and cohesiveness of whatever ministry God leads him to. A ministry will be greatly hampered by someone who thinks that maintenance is about fixing things. In reality, maintenance is about serving people. Having an attitude that says, “I am the maintenance man, and I know how things should to be,” is to teach our associates to isolate and defend themselves, even if the action we chose was the correct one. We have failed to serve them in love. If we truly love them, we will be concerned about their needs, feelings, and ideas, not annoyed by them.

Communication is one of the vehicles that God intends for us to use to convey our love for others. Communication is the sharing of facts, opinions, and ideas with the key idea being that of sharing. Successful communication requires that both parties be willing to give and receive pertinent information. Integrity is a vital ingredient of communication. It is important to avoid a reputation of overstatement or understatement. People are reluctant to act on information from a source known for exaggeration. At the same time, the listener must be openminded. He does not need to accept and assimilate all he hears, but he must avoid forming conclusions or rejecting new ideas before he has considered all of the information.

As we cultivate an atmosphere of communication which is both honest and humble, we will have taken a giant step toward our goal of serving others
through facility maintenance, and it will become a joyful experience. There will always be something to fix, but we should never fail to maintain our relationships, which is what truly matters. The remedy for many facility maintenance headaches is to do relationship maintenance with those we are there to serve. Remember our key Scripture. “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another; not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord” (Romans 12:10-11).

For Maintenance diagram, click here.