This is a follow up to an earlier post 3 Reasons I Lose Focus in Ministry. When focus in ministry is lost, what can you do? How can you keep focus on the current priorities of the ministry? How do you get on track or stay on track?
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Kevin Dooley
1) Personal Prayer. The number one remedy in this is to pray about it. Pray for patience, understanding, pray even for “results” (or better – the ability to see what God is doing – what are God’s results?).
2) Remember that the leadership makes decisions several months before the conrgegation knows or participates in the decision. This is even true in small Churches. I have to remind myself that for any area of focus for my ministry, I have been thinking about it for a lot longer than anyone else, and it is more personal for me than it is for anyone else. It was an area of prayer for me months ago. Now that I am working through it, and wondering why others aren’t as enthusiastic about it, I need to remember that this is new for them, and many of them may not really care, see the value of it, or have the time to devote to it (yet!).
3) Engage the congregation in prayer. Ask people to pray for a new ministry focus. We are working on a renewed focus on our main gathering time (worship, fellowship time, children’s ministry, but we haven’t really asked the congregation to pray about this intentionally.
4) I ask myself whether I am giving the Holy Spirit a deadline. If the leaders previously decided on a particular focus for ministry for the next little while, and I start to want to shift gears, or add something to it, am I really trusting the Holy Spirit. I force myself to think about how long I would be willing to wait for the Holy Spirit to do whatever God is going to do with the ministry we are offering. Is it six weeks? Is it 6 months? 3 years?
5) Set up an evaluation time. Have a time sometime in the next year or six months to seriously ask whether this is still the focus. Do it with the leadership team, and do it in prayer. It isn’t a simple question of “did it work?” or “do we like it?” Having a set evaluation time allows you to keep focussed, knowing that in 3 months you can actually talk and pray about whether this is still the right direction.
6) Read the Vision. (see an earlier post on this) Priorities ought to flow out of a preferred vision of the future, and the most useful “visions” are ones that are written down. When I lose focus, its time to go back and read the vision, to remember the why behind what I am working on. Why wait until you lose focus? Read the vision every week, or every day.
7) Talk it out with someone you trust. Sometimes these conversations for me, start with “we should really start a new ____.” They tend to end with me remembering that I need to keep working on the current priorities.
How do you stay focussed on the top priorities?
