…Where you are going and what you’ll be doing. When you lead anything…whether it’s a church, ministry, business, or organization, you have GOT to decide BEFORE you start where you are going and what you’ll be doing. It’s the pre-decisions that will help you make the TOUGH decisions later on when things start changing. People don’t like change. I’ve found that people REALLY don’t like change, even in the church (maybe especially in the church. And that comes not from being a pastor but from also growing up in a pastors home. I’ve been a pastor’s kid or pastor for 34 years.)
As a pastor/leader, there are some TOUGH decisions that have to be made, and sadly (I REALLY mean that), there are people you lead that will choose not to be a part of what your leading any longer because they don’t like the change. That is NEVER easy, and it is NOT what any pastor wants, but it is a fact of life.
We decided before we started that our mission at Element Church is to connect people with the Life in Christ and to help them follow Him completely.
We decided before we started that our vision is that God would so impact the Cheyenne area through Element Church that if we were gone the community would miss us.
We decided before we started that to maximize our impact we would do three things and say “no” to everything else. We do the worship experience, small groups and community outreach. Our goal in those three things are to be intentional, relevant, practical and effective. Those has NEVER changed. What HAS changed has caused some tough decisions. Thankfully they were decided before we started.
Decide before you start because…
— Every church (business) will have people that liked the church better when it was smaller. Decide before you start what you’re doing and where you’re going.
— Every church (business) will have people that think “Now that we are bigger we need to do THIS”. Decide before you start what you’re doing and where you’re going.
— Every church (business) will have people that say “We never used to do it that way”. Decide before you start what you’re doing and where you’re going.
— Every church (business) will have people that believe “This is what our former church did, or what another church did, so we should do that”. Decide before you start what you’re doing and where you are going.
It is the PRE-decision that motivates the TOUGH decisions in EVERY business, organization or church. The WHERE (vision) you are going and WHAT (mission) you’ll be doing should never change (barring the move and voice of God). Everything else inside of that changes, AND brings on TOUGH decisions. I’m not sure I realized HOW tough they would be sometimes. I’m just glad we decided before we started.
Deciding,
Jeff
