Category: Leadership

Where are you heading personally? Vision Part 2

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In a previous post I wrote about where are you heading in your ministry.  Whilst it is important to steward your ministry well, most of us won’t stay in the same ministry our entire life.  So how do you work out a vision and direction for your life that fits into what God is doing within the ministries that you are planted?

When I was younger I thought my youth group was the best thing I had ever done.  Every Sunday night I would go to Church, during the week we would catch up, I would write talks, help out with meetings and do whatever was needed.  After three years of giving everything I had to this ministry I started to see life after the youth group.  It was like I grew out of the youth ministry as I grew older and I needed to move on.  Since then I have seen the same pattern repeat itself within every ministry I have served in; it is just the length of time that changes.  Sometimes it is six months sometimes three years sometimes 10 years.

In your life have you seen this pattern in ministry:

  1. Discover a new ministry
  2. Soak up everything you can from the group
  3. Devote everything you have to the ministry
  4. Pass on everything you do to other leaders
  5. Move onto the next phase of your life

It is Ok to spend a season in a ministry and move on.

The challenge for us is to be guided by what God is calling us to rather than drifting from ministry to ministry.  If you are going to stay in ministry long enough to contribute, you have to go through a period where it may not be as enjoyable as when you first started.  If you leave a ministry when ever it is no longer enjoyable then you are not moving by God’s call but by your own desires.

Here are four things to help you determine where you should be heading personally:

  1. What is your calling?  Your calling doesn’t usually look like a job description.  It isn’t often that your life’s call is Year 12 Geography teacher at Summer Bay High.  Your calling is some way that you will make a different in the world so describe it in unique ways.  Your calling is most likely not just the things that you are good at but the things that make you stronger as a person and as a disciple.  Your calling will never draw you away from God but will help you build God’s Kingdom in a special way.
  2. What season are you in?  You may be in a season of growth; you may need a season of rest.  You need to reflect on what season you are in because God may be asking you to sow into a particular ministry for a particular time.  If you feel you must commit somewhere for the rest of your life then you may miss the opportunity to sow into a great ministry for a short period of time.
  3. What are you preparing for?  Are you developing your craft for a future season?  We can be so focused on what we are doing now that we forget we need to be preparing for what is next.  This might be further study, it might be connecting with mentors who are at the next level, it might be reading more books or developing your platform.  Even if you are in a season of great productivity you should be preparing for the future.
  4. What is your life’s work?  Sometimes you need to imagine how you will view your life after you retire.  Whilst most of us have no idea about every single job that we will hold in our life, it is important to focus on what significance your life will make as a whole.  Some people will have three or four ministries throughout their life others will serve in 10-15 different places.  What difference will your life make as a whole in the Kingdom of God?

Whilst this might sound focused on you, I really believe that we have to let God be God.  We have to constantly be asking God how can I serve you?  It is not our vision but God’s vision that we should be following.  If you are heading nowhere in your life then you will get there.  If you want to be heading in the right direction then you have to be looking to God.

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Where are you heading? Vision Part 1

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Andy Stanley wrote that the end of a God ordained vision is God.  So if you are heading towards a vision then you want to make sure that it is God ordained.  You want to make sure that you are doing what God created you to do with your life, in order that you can come closer to God.  The reverse would be true as well; the end of your vision is you, because it is you that set the direction and it is you that chose what was important.

In ministry we can often get lost in a minefield of vision, which is ironic because vision should be crystal clear.  The reason that we get lost is because we don’t know whose vision to follow:

  • Senior Minister – any Senior Minister has their own reason for being in ministry and they have the greatest say over what is seen as important in your church.
  • Elder’s board or church Council – are the church leadership team really discerning God’s ordained vision for your church or is it vision by consensus?  Sometimes church boards are made up of people who are just “helping out” and have no clue what God wants for their church, other times a church board is filled with the most gifted people.
  • Finance Committee – a good finance committee works out how to achieve the vision that God has ordained, yet in some churches the Finance committee determines what vision the church can afford.  If God ordains the vision then God will provide, don’t settle only for what you can afford.
  • The Ministry – we often are look for the new vision for our ministry as though it is separate from the vision that God has for our Church.  Don’t let your ministry be heading in a different direction from the rest of your Church.

So how do you know which vision to follow?  We know from scripture that people without a vision will perish so which one do we pick?  It is important to reflect on these key things:

  1. Branding is not vision – sometimes we rush into a vision statement because we need to brand our ministry.  A good vision can take at least six months to discern, most likely it will take around 12 months.  A vision is going to set you heading in a particular direction for the next ten years where as your branding will only last 2-3 years at best.  If you like a particular style of marketing or branding then run with it but don’t confuse branding for vision.
  2. You are not your ministry – it is important for you to separate your own personal vision from that of your ministry.  God wants you to do something with your life that may be different to what God wants from the ministry you serve in.  In reality the ministry should keep going long after you have left the position but God still wants you to build the Kingdom even though you move onto the next position.  Don’t confuse what you want to do with your life with where God is calling the ministry to go.
  3. Ministry has its season – perhaps you don’t know where your ministry is going for the next ten years but you can discern where you are heading for the next season.  In youth ministry it is sometimes difficult to have a vision beyond five years.  In University ministry students move on every 3 years so a vision must accommodate each season being quite short.  If you are called to lead for a season then pursue the vision as best you can and leave God to work out the next season.
  4. Ideas come with a strong vision – when you have a strong vision of where you are heading over the next 10 years then usually you are full of ideas.  People who run out of ideas are either run out of vision or are heading in the wrong direction.  One church used the phrase  “no rowing ministry” to describe when the wind has changed direction but we row the boat where we want to go.  If your vision is God ordained then the ideas will come.

A practical example

There was a Church that started a youth ministry by asking the young people what they wanted.  The answers that the young people gave were passionate and exciting but they were all ideas of things they could do rather than a vision of where they were heading.  The leaders called me after six months to say they had run out of ideas.  When I asked them about their vision they clearly didn’t have one; they only had a list of ideas for fun youth nights.

After focusing them on discerning a vision and asking them to think about where they were heading they came up with a list of what they wanted young people in their ministry to be like.  In the end they clarified a vision around helping young people to know Christ.  Over a year later they were still going strong and they were developing more leaders and they were full of ideas.  Where there was no leadership towards a vision the group almost collapsed but when the leaders had a strong vision of where they were heading then the group thrived.

So where are you heading?

markoffaith, MarkofFaith, Mark of Faith, mark of faith

Creating a big impression at Church

Creating a Big impression at Church

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Creating a big impression at ChurchThere are occasions in every Church calendar when the leadership team want to create a big impression.  Perhaps it is an outreach event, a new members night, Back to Church Sunday or the first night of an Alpha Course.  Whilst we can’t create a big impression all the time, there should be one or two events every year that really create the big impression to visitors.  Whilst we all look for shortcuts to creating a big impression, the reality is that a big effort creates a big impression.  In a world where everyone is bombarded with excellence, people are still impressed when an organisation makes an effort to impress.

For example this week I have been taking my boys along to our local church holiday program.  As we walked to the church on day one, I was expecting the boys to have a good day with other kids from the area.  When I arrived at the church the entire foyer was decorated with a jungle theme including hand made vines hanging off the rafters.  There was a welcome team that opened the front door for us and showed us how to register.  By the time I had dropped my boys off, they were so impressed by the foyer that they were expecting a great day.  The foyer experience had created a big impression on me and my boys.

Michael Hyatt suggests that the “Wow Factor” is created when an organisation goes beyond our expectations.  In other words to create a big impression an organisation has to go beyond the effort that people are expecting.  But there are some guideline to remember when creating a big impression so that you don’t burn out your team:

  1. Cut back  – it might seem odd to suggest that you cut back on events in order to create a big impression at Church but you can’t do everything.  Your team will have to decide on what they will stop doing in order to create the time and space needed to put in the big effort required to create the big impression.  Perhaps instead of doing 10 events that require a lot of effort you could scale back to three or four big impression events.  Some churches have cut back from holiday programs every term so they can put the effort into one big annual holiday program.
  2. Beg and Borrow – no ministry has the budget to do everything they want to do, so think about low cost ways to create the big impression.  One ministry drove a car into the church foyer to create the wow factor for a father’s day event, another church put a king size bed on stage for an event on Marriage (both items were owned by church members).  Think about items that you can get or borrow for free and then use them in interesting ways.
  3. Centre piece – if you do have the budget for decoration, then spend it on the focal point in the room.  When people are sitting or standing for the longest part of your event where will they be looking?  This focal point is where you can spend your money and biggest effort.  You don’t want to spend money on the foyer if the participants will spend 3 or 4 hours looking at a blank wall behind the guest speaker.  However if you are after positive first impressions then what will a guest see first?
  4. Recruit Volunteers – having lots of volunteers will make it much easier to set up and pack down.  We often forget how much effort it takes to pack up the event at the end, so organise the pack up team before you start.  The more volunteers you have to make things before the event the less you will have to spend on items made by someone else.  For example Conference bags are a standard item that create a big impression if it is full of useful items rather than just a pen and blank paper yet it can take hours for volunteers to stuff 100 conference bags carefully.
  5. Invite people to the event – if you are going to spend time and money on creating a big impression then you want people not just to see it but experience it.  You need to spend as much effort on inviting people to the event as setting up for the event.

It is often said that “Excellence honours God and inspires others” and yet this takes a lot of effort.  If you want to create a big impression it is going to take a big effort.  After reading this post perhaps you need to lead your team to think through the rest of  annual calendar to choose one or two events that are going to get the big effort and which events won’t require as much effort.

You might also like to read about creating excellence at Church

Also please leave a comment about how you have created a big impression at your Church.

markoffaith, Mark of Faith, mark of faith

Young People are the future of the Church

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For over 20 years, Youth Minister have been arguing that the youth are not the future of the Church, they are the Church of today. Frankly, it hasn’t worked, young people are still leaving the Church, youth ministry budgets are still low and staff levels have either declined or stayed the same. The “Church of today” mantra hasn’t worked. What if we return to the motto of “young people are the future of the Church” would it work any better?

Here are a few questions we might ask our Parish Council, Vestry or Elders board if young people are the future of the Church:

  1. Senior Minister:  if you had to recruit your next Senior Pastor, Minister or Parish Priest from within your own people, are you developing future leaders?  Do you have enough good Christian young people entering theological education so that your next Senior Pastor is a great God honouring leader?  Who is your Senior Minister personally mentoring to take over their job in the future?
  2. Youth Pastor: if you had to recruit your next Youth Pastor from within your own people are you developing young people who have had a positive experience of youth ministry?  Do you mentor young adults so that they feel supported enough to take on a leadership role in future years as the Youth Ministry Coordinator?  If young people drop out of Church between the ages of 10-14, perhaps the 14 year old who just gave up on your church was your future Youth Pastor walking out your back door.
  3. Parish Council: if you had to recruit your next Elders board, Vestry or Parish Council member from within your own people would it be possible?  Are there young adults coming through your church who honour God with their lives and in the future could stand for leadership in your parish?  If you are not forming young people in your church today then the future of your Parish or Church leadership team is not looking good.  Perhaps the young people sitting in your church today who are bored and making paper aeroplanes out of the bulletin are thinking the last thing they want to do with their life is serve the Church.
  4. Financial Partners: nobody likes to mention the fact that the Church has always needed, and will always need, people who earn income in the world and donate it to the Church.  Are you investing in young people teaching them to go into the business world and be the best they can?  Because one day those young people will earn a pay cheque and make a decision on how much they give to the Church.  If they skip youth ministry and stop coming to Church, pretty soon your church will have fewer and fewer financial partners.  Perhaps the 14 year old who walked out your back door never to return was going to become the key financial partner in the future of your parish.

If we truly believe that the young people are the future of our Church wouldn’t we do things differently?  If your church had to recruit all its future leaders and financial partners from within your church wouldn’t you take the young people more seriously?  It is my opinion that many churches don’t think the young people are the future or the present of the Church, they are someone elses problem. Many churches are doing nothing hoping that someone else is forming great leaders they can steal/employ years down the track.

Absolutely we should see young people as the Church of today, but if we are serious about them being the future of our Church then let us invest far more into youth ministry than we currently are too.  Please a comment or share your thoughts below.

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Sometimes in ministry we need to “Pay it back”

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Have you ever heard the term “pay it forward“? It is a term that often gets used in ministry circles to encourage us to sow the blessings we have received from mentors into the next generation.  We receive so much from the mentors who formed us and we pay it forward to those that we mentor.  But do we ever pay back those who have mentored us with a thank you?  Ministry can be such a thankless task that occasionally we need to thank those who mentored us along the way.

Recently I was working with a great young leader, asking him about his journey of faith.  He had a great outlook on ministry so I asked him about his role models and he was able to list four or five men who had mentored him.  These were youth group leaders or young pastors in his Church.  It happens that I know some of these men and I bet they would love to know the fruit of some their work.  More importantly that experience made me reflect on the people who I needed to thank for sowing into me.

St Paul talks about watering seeds that other have planted and to recognise that God does all the work.  Sometimes in ministry we seemed to be doing a lot of sowing and watering without much growth.  In many cases we never see the fruit of our labour because God plants the person in another ministry or another church.  We can go for years without knowing what we have achieved.  If you find yourself in this situation here is three things to do:

  1. Create a culture of Gratitude:  instead of waiting for someone to thank you for your ministry, start thanking those who serve  with you in ministry.  Thank the volunteers who serve every week, thank those who pray for the ministry and thank those who financially support your ministry.  Don’t forget to thank the people above you, your Senior Minister, Parish Priest, Vestry, Elders board or Parish Council.
  2. Thank your Mentors: think of all the people who have mentored you and sown into your development. Write them a little thank you note, message them on Facebook or email them.  Whilst it is nice to send them a card, just thank them any way you can.  Often we still look up to our mentors and forget that they are real people who get disheartened just like we do.  If you appreciate your mentors by thanking them it will help them stay strong in their ministry too.
  3. Love your Family:  often our family are the forgotten heroes of our ministry.  Perhaps your parents took you to church as a child, supported your faith or paid for you to go on camp.  Maybe your relatives encouraged your development as a teenager.  Maybe your wife, husband and kids have allowed you to go to one more ministry event.  Love your family first and thank them for the support they give you.

We should take the blessings sown into us and pass it forward to the next generation.  But don’t forget to pay back the mentoring, love and attention that you received from others.  Learn to pay it forward and pay it back.

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Don’t get trapped within a Youth Ministry Cohort

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Have you ever had a bumper group come through your youth ministry?  I mean a group that is firing on all cylinders.  This group volunteers for everything, invite their friends, engage in worship, pray regularly, take an active interest in the youth ministry and everything is going very well.  These can be the golden years or dream years for the youth ministry.  You seem to connect with this group, you make friends more easily and they really seem to understand you.  In simple terms a cohort is a group like this that moves through your ministry in a group, they join and leave together.

Leading this cohort in youth ministry is what we dream of, it makes it worthwhile.  But the trap is that this group grows up and moves out of your ministry into the next group, which you don’t lead.  Perhaps you have never seen this happen, maybe you have.  In the youth group that I attended, the dream cohort were finishing up just as I joined.  It seemed that just after I joined everyone got too old for the group and left, leaving all of us a little deflated.  In fact these dream cohorts can create such a bubble in a group that when it bursts, they all leave, the group can’t go on.

Recently I put this question to Tim Hawkins from St Paul’s at Castle Hill.  Whilst Tim has been in Youth Ministry for a long time, he has led cohorts through St Paul’s for 18 years, so I thought he would have experience in this area.  Well Tim’s advice was really really simple.  He said:

“You gotta keep thinking of who is coming next”

Sounds so simple that everyone would do it.  But here are several practical tips that Tim mentioned:

  • People in Children’s ministry should keep an eye on birth announcements, these are the couples who will be bringing their kids to children’s ministry in a year or two.
  • People in Junior high ministry should be looking at the years 4,5,6 who are getting bored in the children’s ministry and are ready to move on.
  • People in Senior high ministry should be looking for the next Senior who can learn to lead at their youth ministry nights and be trained to run small groups.

Whilst we are all tempted to look for a complex plan, it seems from Tim Hawkins that it is as simple and as complex as keeping ahead of the game.  It might be hard and repetitive work but the alternative is having to rebuild your ministry from scratch every time a dream cohort leaves.  So who is coming next in your ministry?  Do you need to start recruiting for the ministry below you in the age cycle so you have a pipeline coming into your ministry?

What are your youth ministry tips for avoiding “Cohortism”?

Would you do what you ask your workers to do?

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There is a WorkSafe campaign on Victoria television at the moment with the slogan “would you do what you ask your workers to do?”  In each of the seven 20 second commercials a supervisor asks a worker to do something that is obviously unsafe and the worker agrees.  The point of the campaign is that workers are asked to do unsafe things all the time, just not that obvious.  Of course a worker would never do something unsafe if it was that obvious but what if it wasn’t obvious.

Check out the adds: Worksafe victoria


Whilst the campaign is frightening it drives home the point that we can’t ask people to do something that we know is unsafe.  One supervisor asks the young worker to work on a broken machine, another asks them to work in an inappropriate desk, another to fall off the back of a motor bike on a farm and another to work on a roof without a harness.

So it got me thinking about the situations which we ask our young ministry workers to go into.  Here might be a sample add:

Church leader: Will you work in our church unsupervised with no support but with all the responsibility, you will receive complaints from parents and church members, you will burn out after 18 months and probably hate the church for a while?

Young Leader: Sure

Church Leader:  Oh and we will pay you less than you would get at a fast food restaurant but work longer hours

Young Leader: Sure

If you think this is a far fetched situation then why is it all too common?  Why do we ask people to take on children ministry or youth ministry for 8-10 hours per week?  Many young people take on jobs in ministry for low pay with little supervision because we take advantage of their interest to serve the Church.  My hope is that we reduce the turn over rate of young ministry workers by putting into place support systems for our youngest leaders.   I know some churches can’t pay any more but lets give them the best mentoring and supervision available, lets disciple them like Jesus would.

Would you do what we ask young worker to do?

Burn out in Youth MInistry

Burning out vs Natural turnover in Youth Ministry

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Burn out in Youth MInistry

Is it Burn out or Natural turn over in Youth Ministry?

In Youth Ministry it seems that leaders turn over every 2-3 years, if a church is lucky they may get 4 or 5 years before changing leaders.  Whilst there are many youth ministry veterans who promote the value of long term tenure, it seems that 10 year veterans are rare in our industry.  It made me think about the difference between turn over and burn out.  Is burn out being disguised as natural turn over?  Are some people leaving youth ministry because their time is up or do they burn out but call it turn over?  Could some leaders go on longer if there was more support?

These thoughts started when a friend asked me if I was burnt out or just needed to move on from my last position.  In some ways it was a bit of both.  After 5 years it was getting time to look for a new challenge but I was also finding it hard to recharge my energy levels.  This friend has seen many leaders in youth ministry burn out, yet she said that often people dismiss it by saying they were “getting too old for youth ministry”.

So how can we spot the difference between natural turn over and real burn out?  Here are a few thoughts from my experience:

Turnover:

  • You can choose when to leave – it is a great freedom to be able to choose when you finish up in a leadership position.  For example when I got engaged I turned over my leadership to a new leadership team because I felt the team was in good hands and I need to start a new journey.  Another time I turned over my leadership position after I finished a two year project and it was time for a younger leader to have the opportunity I had.  Natural turn over often happens when the time seems right for both the ministry and the individual.
  • You leave with energy for the next ministry – it is a great blessing to finish one ministry and move into another ministry.  It is a great thrill when a youth leader finishes up with the youth ministry because they are taking on a ministry in the adult congregation.  I remember leaving my church council to begin an outreach ministry and I left with so much energy and wisdom from the church council.  Natural turn over often happens when a person is passionate about moving on to another ministry.

Burnout

  • You leave later than you should – it is easy in sport to see when someone retires one season too late.  They say a person should retire at the top of their game.  Yet in youth ministry people often hang on a season too long because there is no replacement.  We can stay in ministry one season too long because we have no transition plan.  I stayed in one ministry for too long because I wanted stability and was scared to face change.  People often burn out because they feel guilty about leaving until it is too late.
  • You leave without any energy – Sometimes we stay on too long in a ministry and we quit because we are exhausted.  When a person finds it hard to begin a new season and lacks the energy to begin again they are burnt out.  People often burn out when they run out of energy from trying too hard.

Is burn out just part of youth ministry?  Whilst I would like to say it shouldn’t be, burnout is all too common in our industry.  Burn out should not be an occupational hazard, it should be avoided.  I think we should celebrate Natural turn over in youth ministry rather than hiding it when leaders leave.  Natural turn over role models healthy behave.  It encourage people to be healthy enough to choose when they leave and allows them to start a new ministry with energy.

Please leave your thoughts on burn out and turn over

What I have learned about discipleship from Grand Designs

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Some of you may have seen Kevin McCloud hosting the TV show Grand Designs.  Whilst the program shows off some amazing houses renovated or built by British people in Europe, it was the style of the host that impressed me.  Kevin McCloud has hosted over 90 episodes of the show, which in the TV industry is a big deal.  In the eight seasons, Kevin has witnessed many building mistakes, challenges and failures.  Yet Kevin McCloud has also been there when 90 home owners have showed off their Grand Design success.

When I watched the show recently, it taught me something about being there to support someone as they undergo a journey through something.  What interested me the most was how the style of Kevin McCloud could be a style for mentoring future ministry leaders.  Kevin McCloud is an expert in his field and yet supports the home owners who are going through the build or renovation for the first time.  As ministry leaders we may have seen it all before but the people in our ministry are often going through issues for the first time.  How can we support these people through mentoring and discipleship?

So here are four things that I learnt from watching Grand Designs:

  1. Allow the person to share their vision – there is always a segment in the show where Kevin asks the home owner to share their vision for their project.  This is makes the show as much about the people as it is about the house being built or renovated.  In a ministry context, we should allow the people we are discipling to share their grand design for their life.  The process of mentoring and discipling should be on the individual, not what we can do for them or what we can teach them.
  2. Ask probing questions– Kevin McCloud would have seen every mistake in the book yet he never gives the home owner all the answers he asks probing questions:
    1. Why are you doing it that way?
    2. What problems do you see a few steps down this path?
    3. What other options do you have?

In the ministry context this reminded me that we need to let people discover things for themselves.  It is tempting to give away all the answers because we have been there before.  However people need to make some mistakes and have some failures so they develop their own strategies for dealing with difficulties in their life.

  1. Let people surprise you – Whilst Kevin McCloud knows the show will work out in the end, it has for 90 episodes, Kevin is still surprised by how many home owners attack problems and overcome challenges.  In a ministry context allow people to surprise you and learn from the way they overcome challenges.  Rather than “lording” your experience over the people that you mentor and disciple, allow yourself to learn from them.
  2. Celebrate their success – Each episode of Grand Design finishes with the home owner showing off and celebrating their new home or grand renovation.  Many people have gone way over budget and taken much longer than planned but they are happy with the result.  Kevin McCloud celebrated their success with them.  In a ministry context we should celebrate the successes of the people in our ministry rather than reminding them of how much they still have to learn.  Learn to celebrate the small steps that people in your ministry make.

If you ever get the chance, what Kevin McCloud host an episode of Grand Designs.  You can see many of the episodes online.

The Concorde vs the 747 … and your next ministry project

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You may not know this about me but I have a soft spot for aviation.  Recently, a story came to my attention that I thought had implications for those of us in ministry.  It is a story about the battle between the Concorde and the Boeing 747.  After Boeing had failed to match the makers of the Concorde with a similar aircraft, Boeing went a different route to build the 747 Jumbo.  Here is a match of the features:

The Concorde

  • The downside – it was a very expensive aircraft to develop costing over a billion dollars to build.  The maintenance and running costs were much higher than other aircraft meaning that it became the passenger airline for the rich and famous.  It was also one of the noisiest and most polluting aircraft in history.
  • The upside – this aircraft was the first passenger aircraft to fly at twice the speed of sound, going from London to New York in 1/3 of the time of other aircraft.  Because this aircraft was so expensive the engineers had to constantly innovate to keep the costs down.  There were many new accomplishments in the design of the Concorde.  Many technical developments, such as fly by wire, are almost standard on all other passenger aircraft.
  • The Lessons for Leaders – the Concorde was such a huge project that once it was started the companies had to see it through.  Often as leaders we skip such a bold project because it will cost too much, take too long or have too many opponents.  Yet the Concorde project shows us that industry leading innovation comes out of the bold projects not the safe projects.

The Boeing 747 Jumbo

  • The upside – the Jumbo was about a quarter of the cost to build, maintain and fly as the Concorde yet it could carry four times the number of passengers.  It made international passenger flight possible for many more people than the elite that flew on the Concorde.  The Jumbo became the aircraft that every airliner in the world had to have.  It was a business smart aircraft that kept costs down.
  • The downside – the Jumbo was the “play it safe” option for the aviation industry.  I don’t want to downplay how important the Jumbo was at the time but it didn’t fly faster or raise the standard.  The Jumbo was the next step in the process of development of large passenger aircraft but it was leaps ahead.
  • The Lesson for Leaders – the Jumbo won the battle because it made more sense for the average person.  Sometimes as leaders we can have our heads in the clouds and not realise what the people we are leading actual want.  It is not a bad thing to go with the project that learns from the boldness of others.  We need to have projects that take our ministry to the next level without breaking the budget.

So what projects do you have on the horizon?

  1. Bold Projects – Do you have a really bold project that will push your boundaries and force you to innovate?  Is this a season where you can try something so bold that you ministry will never be the same?  Perhaps you need a project so bold that it forces you to pray like you have never prayed before.
  2. Next step projects – is it a season for playing it safe and learning from the boldness of others?  It is not a bad thing to take your ministry to the next level through a project that will get wide spread support.  Perhaps you need a project that everyone can get behind rather than pushing the boundaries.

Whilst the 747 Jumbo won the battle, the Concorde is in a league of very special aircraft.  With all its faults and expense the Concorde change the passenger airline industry.  However the 747 Jumbo won the battle because it made the best business sense.

Please leave a comment.