Programming: Going with the Flow

I thought I would share some thoughts on service "flow" ... here is an exerpt from an article I wrote for our Innovate Conference this coming month:

"... Programming the service order reminds me of white-water rafting. Envision that you are paddling along in the calmer waters of a river, when you begin to notice that the current is speeding up. You hear the sound of rumbling waters faintly in the distance. Your senses become more acute; your focus intensifies; you know something is coming. You find the raft traveling even faster until the water is raging, loud and white around a myriad of rocks and swirling eddies. Your muscles tense and your heart pounds as you paddle furiously to keep control! And then, you see the mist rising above a place where the river seems to flow off of the horizon. You scream with excitement as your raft sails over a ten foot waterfall! What an exhilarating ride! Your mind is awake, in tune, and you can’t wait for what’s next!

Now imagine paddling along in the calm waters of that same river and suddenly, without warning, you plummet over that ten foot waterfall. Not so fun. Your mind spends the next ten minutes asking, “What just happened?” In our services, we would rather not have our audience spend valuable time asking themselves this same question, so we attempt to avoid radical changes in energy as a rule. The transitions between the elements in a service are as important as the elements themselves. Often, we create artistic elements specifically for the purpose of helping us move fluidly from one point in the service to the next. "