By the time you read this blog, I’m literally going to ask you that question again…THINK ABOUT IT.
As an organization, Here2There supports churches and missionaries to increase the amount of participation given (for churches) and the amount of personal support utilized in the field (missionaries). As we continue to develop ways we can increase and improve these methods, I find myself reading some interesting – some not so interesting – books on strategy and executing strategy. My current read, “The 4 Disciplines of Execution” has introduced me to the world of Lead and Lag measures. In short:
– Lead Measure: What you do to reach your goal
– Lag Measure: what you use to see you’ve reached your goal
As I began to dig more into these details, I began to see this as a valuable concept we as individuals need to apply to our lives when we think about impacting the Kingdom of God. Typically, when we set goals we set vague goals with no real plan in place to reach the goal.
- I want to share Christ with more people
This is a great, and needed goal, but it is lacking some details that will help us put it into motion.
- How many people is more?
- When is your targeted goal?
- Where am I going to meet these people?
I want to share Christ with 5 people by December 31st.
As churches, we often say we are “missions- minded” or “missions-oriented” but what does that truly mean? Are we constantly thinking of ways that we can better support, partner and encourage our missionaries and ministry partners? Have we created a way for more of our church to be personally involved and connected with our missionaries? Have we found specific needs of our missionaries and connected them with the people in the church who can address that?
We, myself included, get caught up in the goal (lag measure) and often let the “how” slip me by. We forget to see the daily, weekly, monthly changes we need to make that will ensure that we reach our goals. (lead measure)
- Daily – memorize more scripture, and pray by name for people who need Christ
- Weekly – spend two hours at my local coffee shop to meet new people and talk to five people about their relationship with Christ.
- Monthly – Invite 2 new people to join me at the coffee shop to help engage in conversation with others.
We cannot stand there idolizing the goal, we must think about it, on a daily, weekly, monthly basis and ask, “what do I need to do or change to reach my goal?”.
Church, don’t let your goal of partnership, or increased support stop there. THINK ABOUT IT…what do you need to do daily, weekly, monthly to reach the goal or partnership. How can you utilize your weekly gatherings to challenge your people to get involved and make SPECIFIC, TARGETED, INTENTIAL steps towards the big goal?
We’re all familiar with the old adage, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” To tackle our big goals we’ve got to actually decide what bite and when am I going to take it. Being intentional and specific will help us reach the goals we’ve set out to accomplish.
SO, THINK ABOUT IT… what do you need to do TODAY, THIS WEEK, THIS MONTH to engage your entire church in supporting (with themselves – not just money) the missionaries and ministries we partner with?
Do you need help with clarifying your goals and vision for your missions focus? Allow H2T to join you in creating a strategic plan for total involvement of your church for missions. CONTACT US NOW
