The decision making checklist

Decision making is an art based on good input and good thinking. In any critical decision the following checklist can be helpful to understand the risks and opportunities in the decision.


1. When does the decision need to be made? My philosophy is to wait until the decision needs to be made before pulling the trigger. The more time  I have to "think grey" the more of the implications I can discover.


2. Who will the decision impact? Decision makers often do not think carefully about who will be most impacted by the decision. Be sure you know exactly who will be affected and how?


3. What will the push back be? There is always push back to a critical decision - change is uncomfortable. Brainstorm about the push back you are likely to encounter so that your explanation can answer as many questions up front as possible.


4. What is the upside? Decisions are made because there is some advantage to them. Can you articulate clearly the positive impact that the decision will have for your organization?


5. What are the potential unintended consequences? To the best of your ability, identify the consequences of your decision and even what the unintended consequences might be.


6. Who needs to be consulted? The best decisions are made in consultation with others. Who can speak into your proposed action and bring greater clarity or even alternatives to the table?


7. What is the roll out process for informing people? Process is as important as the decision itself. One may have a brilliant idea but run a bad process leaving people with a bad taste in their mouth regarding the decision. Make sure you know how you are going to process people.


8. Should there be dialogue with the affected people? Once you have your ducks in a row and before the decision goes into affect, is there a forum to dialogue with impacted parties to answer questions and concerns in a non-defensive way.


9. If people have concerns, who should they contact? Make sure there is a place to go with ongoing concerns or questions.

The up side of failure

We all fail, whether in large or small ways. No one is exempt. We mess up a relationship and it fails. We lose our business and it fails. We get a bad review and feel like a failure. We lead a team that fell apart - failure. A divorce, DWI conviction, being fired from our job...there are many definitions of failure. Sometimes it is true failure and sometimes we just feel like a failure. But what is failure?


At its root, failure is the opportunity for growth! It calls the question on whether or not we will learn from our circumstance whether self inflicted or other inflicted. It is an opportunity to start over and evaluate, re-calibrate, engage in God in a new way and see new life. Failure is not fatal but an opportunity. Moses found this out, as did the apostle Peter and King David or in our time, Chuck Colson.


When failure invades our lives it is time to call a time out! Depending on the source of the failure there is a sense of loss, maybe guilt, and certainly deep sadness. Nothing wounds the human spirit like failure. It is a wound, it hurts and like a wound takes time to heal. It is an opportunity and it will either take us to despair or hope.


There is no time when despair is more easy or hope more comforting than in failure. Do we give up or do we look forward in the knowledge that God's grace is greater than our failure and His sovereignty is not diminished by our circumstances. Understanding His goodness and His greatness is the genesis of hope, however small in the pain of failure. Press into Him and that tiny grain of hope will grow. Chuck Colson will tell you that his failure in politics and subsequent jail term was the very thing that forced him to open his heart to hope, in Jesus. Failure is an opportunity for growth! Out of his Colson's failure came a close walk with God, numerous books and the transformation ministry of Prison Fellowship.


Too often we move through life without much inspection of our path or introspection of our heart. Time outs, when we are forced to confront our own weakness and need is a precious gift. If, we take the route of hope and move closer to Jesus. 

Just one thing!

As one year draws to a close and another one begins we often think about new beginnings. There are usually many things we would like to improve on, do differently, or start doing. This is where New Year resolutions come in and they often don't work well - usually because we complicate things.


The key to change in life is keeping it simple - and focused. Consider asking just one question in four areas of life as you look at next year.


What is the one change I would like to make in my personal life?
What is the one change I would like to make in my spiritual life?
What is the one change I would like to make in my professional life?
What is the one change I would like to make in my family life?


Just one thing in four spheres of life!


Changing one thing and actually doing it is far more powerful than trying to do a bunch of things and not accomplishing it. And one thing multiplied by four can be powerful change or new beginnings.


Oh, one other thing. Don't wait until January one. Start today and by the time the new year kicks in you are already practicing one new thing in four key areas of life.


One thing - just one.

What does God want for you today?

Take a moment and consider what God wants for you today. We often consider what He wants of us but what does He want for us?


There is no better answer to that question than the blessing that God Himself gave to the priests in Numbers 7:24-26 to pray over the Israelites. This is His wish, His blessing, His commitment to you, His promise to you today.

The Lord bless you and keep you;

the Lord make his face to shine upon you;

and be gracious to you;

the Lord turn his face toward you

and give you peace.

That is an amazing statement from the God of the universe to us. As you walk through your day today, God is going to bless you. His face is turned toward you and offers you peace no matter the circumstances of your life. And He will be gracious to us! Wow!

What more needs to be said? And just so we would get it, He sent His Son to deliver the message personally.

Does your ministry have vision so compelling that people cannot ignore it?

It was Jim Collins who gave us the new word BEHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal). It is the concept of a vision so compelling, so clear, so focused and so energizing that it cannot be ignored. In fact, by its very nature it draws people in who resonate and want to be a part of it. 


This kind of vision is not necessarily about big or expensive. We too often attribute compelling vision as big numbers. Not so. Compelling vision may be to be part of a coalition of churches to together reach every home in a city. Your church size does not matter, but the vision is compelling. It may be to become a congregation known for its love and compassion in the community. It could be to adopt a region of the world where a congregation is committed to bringing the Gospel in a holistic way - a huge challenge that is not dependent on church size. 


Compelling vision is a vision that can be articulated clearly, meets real spiritual needs, is other centered rather than us centered, requires significant energy and even sacrifice to accomplish and will positively and significantly impact a group, community or area with the love and message of Jesus. It's mandate is one that cannot be ignored. 


Here is a counter intuitive principle. We often think people will be motivated to participate and give and become excited when it is something that benefits them. Actually, for most,  the more "other centric" a vision is, the more compelling it is. It calls us to something. It challenges us to participate in what God is doing in big ways. It requires the skills of everyone. It invites us to sacrifice for the sake of something great. It lifts us out of the mundane and calls us to something of eternal significance. 


What is your ministry's compelling vision?


Oh, about BEHAGs? Jesus gave us the biggest one ever. It is the great commandment to love one another as He loved us and the Great Commission, to reach our world for Him.

Hope and Grace 2007

Every December 4 through January 14 since 2007 I daily read the blog www.reachtj.blogspot.com as a remembrance to the hope we have in Jesus and the grace that he extends so freely to us. The blog is the account of my 42 day hospital stay from which I never should have survived - but God gave my family hope and He extended to me  the grace of an extension of life for which I am eternally grateful. 

The battle between life and death started on December 4 when I entered the hospital unable to breath. They quickly determined that I was in congestive heart failure and had massive pneumonia and a huge pleural effusion (a collection of fluid in the wall of the lung-like having a liter of pop stuck inside your lung wall). What they would not know for a week was that it was MRSA  or Methicyllin resistant staphylococcus aureas- a "super bug" pneumonia. This would lead to septic shock, Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, a failed mitral valve in my heart, high fevers that required ice cooling jackets, the shutting down of some of my organs, heartbeats of 220 or higher without the ability to shock my heart back into rhythm - all this while I was in a coma and on a ventilator. On a number of occasions the doctors gathered the family to prepare them for my imminent death.

Amazingly God gave my wife, Mary Ann, hope two days into this ordeal. Two days later was the day that I told her I believed I was going to die. It was the day that they would put me on a ventilator from which I should not have woken up alive. It was the day that I could barely breath as I felt I was drowning in my own fluids. But two days before that day as she sat by me bed she asked Jesus, "How should I pray?" And God replied in an audible voice (to her), "It will be very close, but T.J. will live." A voice of hope when there was no human hope. A voice of hope that she clung to during the next weeks of a life and death struggle. When the doctors gently told the family there was no hope she stood on the hope God had given her. She was a rock of faith as were my sons Jon and Chip who walked through the dark days with her and became men in the process.

Our family experienced amazing grace during and after those days. Our prayer partners came to pray and love on the family. Friends gathered around and sheltered them in their love. And time and again, God gave His grace when it was needed. One night as my youngest sister was standing by my bed angry with God tired and discouraged, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Immediately she knew that it was going to be OK whether I lived or I died. She turned to see who was there but there was no one. She knew she had been touched by God or an angelic being. On another day, a nurse came in tears to Mary Ann and said through tears, "I was just in T.J.'s room and God gave me a vision of him alive and well!"

Most of all we were blessed through the thousands who prayed for God to do something miraculous and extraordinary. It is the faith and prayers of thousands around the world whom God answered in His sovereignty in choosing to heal my broken heart, clear my lungs, defeat MRSA, septic shock, cool the fevers until the day I walked out of the hospital on January 14, a product of His grace.

God gives us hope in all situations and His grace is with us always. Think back to the situations you have been in where He has shown you His hope and His grace and never forget. Never forget! It is His grace that sustains us day to day, it is His hope that walks with us through the dark nights of the soul that we all experience. Someone asked me, "How do you remember?" One of the ways I remember is to read the blog put up for me daily from December 4 to January 14. It is a month of remembrance for me. On that I will follow until I see Him and can thank Him in person. 

I am a walking billboard of God's hope and grace. So are you. Never forget. Always live in thanks for His hope and grace. 

http://www.reachtj.blogspot.com/

Accountability, transparency and calendars

One of the interesting issues in ministry is that there is often very little accountability for how pastors and others in ministry use their time. I have often been in conversations with church staff who are frustrated that they don't know where the pastors they support are or what they are doing when out of the office. Thus for many hours during the week there is no known schedule for the pastoral staff. In one case, the senior pastor was in the office two days a week and the support staff person has no idea what he does the rest of the week. In another case, staff do not have the permission to contact the senior leader when he is out.


On a personal level, lack of accountability is dangerous. On a professional level it is a terrible example to others regarding how accountable we choose to to be. In the professional world such lack of transparency is rarely accepted and where it is, no better an example. 


The more transparent we are regarding how we spend our time, the more trust we elicit. When our staff does not know where we are or what we are doing they can legitimately make all kinds of assumptions. When leaders are not accountable for their time, it sends a message to others as to how accountable they should be. When our staff knows how and where we spend out time (and the hours put in) it creates a culture of accountability and transparency.


Transparency and accountability make for high trust. That is why my schedule is available to all my key staff via electronic calendar sharing. I am also always available if someone needs to reach me. I can also view the calendars of the other members of my team. One can even color code their calendars by activity to understand where the key categories of time is spent. 


Of course that raises a simple question: Do we even have a calendar or are we just doing life by the seat of our pants? Just like our check books reveal the priorities of our spending, so our calendars reveal the priorities of how we choose to spend our time. If there is no calendar it reveals a low view of how one spends his/her time while a detailed calendar reveals a careful view of time spent.   


Time is one of those things that one cannot get back. Our stewardship of how we use that time is an indicator of our desire to live intentionally rather than accidentally. Our transparency with our team regarding our calendar reinforces trust and models healthy accountability.