Leaders have big ideas, strong confidence and inspiring faith. They can see what their organization, team, business, ministry or church will eventually become. They envision it a few years down the road running at full-steam with plenty of resources, support, and specialization.
But they make a big mistake if they try to create that full-orbed vision NOW.
Instead, wise leaders focus on doing a few things well and then building from there. Rather than diluting the resources and leaders in a bunch of mediocre things, they create momentum and excellence in a few areas. If those go well, they add to them.
This is how we’ve built Redemption Church Gateway over the last four years. For few years, all we did was Sunday services, mid-week groups, leadership development, and occasional special events. As those were solidified and strong, we began to add other ministry environments and projects.
Even as we’ve added new things, we’ve taken the same approach. So in building a women’s discipleship environment, we started with a few things for a short period of time and did them well. Perhaps more will be added in the future, but maybe not.
At times people in the church have felt we’ve moved too slow. Or they’ve been disappointed that we didn’t have a particular ministry to meet their “needs.” We’ve been disappointed when folks have left.
But we aren’t willing to compromise on this.
Better to do a few things well than a bunch of stuff with mediocrity.
Appreciate your acknowledging that people will leave when leadership takes this approach. If you can talk more about responding well to that, that could be helpful.
It’s happened enough that it might be worth doing a separate post on. Thanks for the idea.