Moving from illusion to reality

Many churches and other Christian ministries (along with their staff and boards) live in illusion. Their illusion is that all is well, that they are making disciples, that they are seeing significant new fruit or that they are a healthy church. It is often illusion because it is what they desire to believe about themselves but it is often not the true reality.

Why live in illusion? It is a comfortable place to be as it allows us to believe that we are doing well. And we all want to do well. But, without a specific plan in any important ministry area we cannot move our ministry from illusion to reality. Getting to reality requires a plan, intentionality and the ability to measure the result. 

Let's take disciplemaking. Very few churches if asked have an intentional disciplemaking process. Even fewer have built disciplemaking into the very fabric of who they are so that it touches everything they do and everyone who is involved. And finally it is a rarer thing still to have a way of measuring the results of these efforts. Yet, without these kinds of steps the church is living in the illusion that they are doing well.

Here is an interesting exercise. Have you staff or board list the most important issues that you believe the church ought to be doing well in from a scriptural point of view. Then ask these simple questions:

• Do we have a real plan?
• Do we have a description of what we are after?
• Are we being intentional?
• Can we measure the result?
• How are we really doing?
• Based on the above are we living in illusion or reality?

These questions can be applied in the local church, on the mission field and in any Christian ministry. Of course the only individuals who will ask the questions are those who desire to live in reality rather than illusion.

(Written today from Berlin, Germany)

The difference between urgent and strategic

I live with a sense of urgency that the Gospel becomes well known in a world that desperately needs a Savior. Anyone who does not does not understand the eternal implications of an eternity without Christ.

That urgency, however, should never cause us to short circuit our effectiveness by failing to do the hard work of being strategic in our ministries. Many ministry staff are tempted for the sake of urgency to move fast rather than to  plan for lasting and healthy ministry results. Moving fast to meet needs often causes us to cut corners and allow urgent action to overshadow long term results.

This is certainly true in missions where it is easy to see a need, jump in and take quick action without the hard work of understanding the context, developing local relationships and working toward developing church planting movements that are indigenous, self supporting, reproducing, healthy and interdependent. Urgent action rarely gets one to long term effectiveness.

It can be hard in ministry to be patient in developing strategies for long term results. And many do not. The temptation to do something often gets in the way of thinking through how we are proceeding and the unintended consequences of our strategy. Acting impulsively often yields short term gains at the expense of long term effectiveness. It also can create significant chaos and instability for staff involved. 

Whatever ministry you are involved in, think long term and strategic. Allow the urgency to fuel strategic thinking and Spirit dependence. But don't allow the urgent to short circuit long term and lasting results.