There are two key factors that can directly influence whether your ministry moves forward or remains static. These two factors will not be new to you. Nor will anyone argue that they are not important. The real issue is that most leadership teams and boards do not choose to live these two commitments out. To their detriment.
If you want to change the status quo and find meaningful momentum two things are necessary: Time devoted to prayer and time devoted to thinking about the future. Few would argue with this but most do not practice these in a meaningful way.
Prayer is "time exposure to God." That is why prayer changes us - as it reorients our hearts and plans around His has for us. And if the Spirit is our counselor, prayer is that opportune time for Him to give us His wisdom rather than simply asking Him to bless our wisdom.
Think about the difference of asking Jesus to give us His wisdom versus blessing our wisdom!
The second game changer for boards and leadership teams is not a new idea either. But executing it is less common than it should be. It is that of thinking and planning for the future. Why is it so uncommon? Because managing a current crisis or managing the day to day operations sucks the needed time and energy to focus on the future. What suffers is what could be at the expense of what already is.
What is already is - but what could be will not be realized without an investment of time, energy and careful thought.
This discussion comes out of carefully thinking about questions like the following:
- Where is God doing something already that we ought to be paying attention to?
- What opportunities has God put across our path that we can use for His Kingdom purposes?
- How can we take what we currently do to the next level in order to see more believers and better believers?
- Is God impressing something new on our hearts that we ought to be considering?
- How well are we doing on a discipleship pathway?
These and other questions are the kinds of questions we long to grapple with as leaders. The only thing needed is time.
How does one find the time? By recalibrating meetings around what is most important rather than what looks in the immediate time frame the most urgent. There will always be urgent matters but time lost to think about the future cannot be regained.
