Tag Archives: focus

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How to Bring Clarity to Your Church & Ministry

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Photo by David Travis on Unsplash

If you’re anything like me, you need to focus. There are times when you need to hunker down and get things done. Yet, your mind wanders. You daydream or think about what will happen later today or tomorrow. It could be a conversation, a meeting, or a vacation you can’t wait to start.

Your lack of focus might come from no desire to do what you are doing, how hard something is, or because you didn’t sleep well last night.

I often cannot focus well because of the whirlwind around me.

Clarity and focus come from having “white space.” This is where you can shut down social media or email and think. To narrow down what matters the most right now.

I’ve heard John Maxwell say that leaders could stop doing 80% of what they’re doing, and no one would notice. That feels high, but there is some merit to it.

Leaders could stop doing 80% of what they’re doing and no one would notice.

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Each day you must be able to say, “If I accomplish nothing else today, here’s what must get done.” That focus helps you to stay on track.

When you find your brain wandering, stand up, walk around, get some fresh air, and then return to something.

Clarity for Your Church or Organization

Clarity doesn’t just matter for you; it has enormous implications for your team and church.

Many teams lack clarity. They are stuck in a whirlwind of activity, simply doing the thing right in front of them. This is easy to do in a church because worship services come around with such regularity (every seven days), so there is a deadline to that whirlwind.

For our team, just like in our family, we discuss what is most important for the next 2-6 months as a team. What are we all going to be working on and moving towards?

In a church setting, it is easy to lose sight of why you are doing something or why something started, and slowly, it is just what you’ve always done. 

Why Clarity Matters

Without clarity and focus, anything and everything is important.

This is where many churches and people get off track in their lives and ministries.

Clarity says this matters more than that.

That is hard to say because it determines ahead of time what you will think about, work on, spend money on, and give manpower to.

Whether you sit down and write this out or say it, you do this daily exercise.

The ones who accomplish things and see greater effectiveness are the ones who decide this instead of falling into it.

The days that I flopped into bed with a feeling of “What did I accomplish today?” were when I wasn’t focused and allowed my day to get away from me.

Amazingly, as you read through the gospels, you see Jesus’s incredible focus. He was fully present wherever he went. Whether teaching, healing, resting, praying, or spending time with his disciples, he was focused on what he was doing. When you think about what he did, you also understand what he didn’t do. He made the choices we have to make every day: what will get our time, energy, and attention?

Communicating Clarity

Patrick Lencioni said, “A leader is to create clarity, communicate clarity, and overcommunicate clarity.”

This is hard as a leader because to do this, you have to be clear on what you and your church are doing. This can lead to a divide, and some people may decide they don’t want to move forward with you, which is hard to navigate. 

Once you have clarity, you must communicate it and continue to communicate it. 

This can feel like a broken record, and you get tired of hearing yourself say it, but you must remember that every time you communicate clarity at your church, someone hears it for the first time. I say the same thing every Sunday when I stand in our volunteer prayer circle. Why? We need to be reminded why we are there, and every week, someone is serving for the first time, so they haven’t heard it. 

How do you know if you’ve communicated it?

One is you are tired of hearing it. But the second is you start hearing people say it back to you. And thirdly, you start hearing people pray for it. 

When these three things happen, people get the vision. 

How do you know if people get the vision? One is you are tired of hearing it. But the second is you start hearing people say it back to you. And thirdly, you start hearing people pray for it.

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4 Ways to Get Unstuck when You’re in a Rut

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Photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash

Have you ever felt like you were in a rut? Maybe in your marriage, you and your spouse keep missing each other no matter what you try. Maybe as a parent, you feel like you are stuck and just can’t get moving. Or spiritually, this happens when we feel like we are going through the motions. The same thing happens with friendships, our careers, or fitness goals.

Stuck.

It describes so many people and how we live our lives.

Spinning our tires.

Not moving forward. Maybe even moving backward.

That feeling that no matter what you do personally or in your church, you never get anywhere. Nothing grows, nothing changes, nothing gets better, and sometimes it even gets worse.

Your marriage doesn’t change, your health doesn’t improve, and you still can’t talk to your kids or boss. You still have no idea what to do with your life, how to get out of debt, or how to let go of your past hurts.

Stuck.

When that happens, what do you do?

Here are 4 ways to get unstuck in life, marriage, or ministry:

4 ways to get unstuck in life, marriage or ministry.

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Have a Plan. You can’t change anything without a plan. You have to identify what is wrong, what needs to change, and what the future would look like if it changed. Often, we move forward without any kind of plan for what we hope to accomplish. When this happens, and nothing changes, we can lose heart and give up.

Be Intentional. After coming up with a plan, you can be intentional. In the same way that it takes very little effort to go into debt or put weight on, it takes an enormous effort to get out of debt and lose weight. A plan won’t be enough; you must create accountability and attach dates and times to things. If you will have a weekly date night, what night will it be? If you reach a certain benchmark at work, when will that be completed, and what steps will you take to get there?

You have all the time you need to do everything you want to do.

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Everything Gets a Minute. Anything worthwhile in your life has a minute attached to it. Whenever someone says, “I wish I could do ____, but I don’t have time,” they are usually lying to themselves. They don’t care enough to make that happen. The reality is you have all the time you need to do everything you want to do. If you want to do something, you will find the time. Taking a class, reading a book to grow, exercising, and getting more sleep, no matter what, you will find the time if you want something bad enough.

You might think, but I would still like to do ____ but can’t find the time. Then, it might not be the season for you to do that. Just because you want to do something doesn’t mean this is the moment. You might have young kids at home, so returning to school isn’t for right now. That’s okay. 

Everything that gets done in life has a minute attached to it.

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Every time you say yes to something, you say no to something else. You shouldn’t do everything. One reason many people get stuck is they try to do everything. When you say yes to signing your child up for a sport, you say no to less stress, dinners as a family, and other things. Is that bad? It depends on your life, goals, and what you hope to accomplish. Only you can answer that; the answer changes in different seasons as you age and your kids get older. A silly example: Katie and I have talked about how much TV we want to watch (this is the minute idea). Any time we add a new show that starts, we agree we need to stop watching another show; otherwise, we will spend more time than we want to watch TV.

Every time you say yes to something, you say no to something else.

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Finding Your Word for the Year

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Apple AirPods near MacBook

Every year, millions of Americans will set goals for the coming year, and by February, the vast majority of them have given up. 

One of the things I like to do is focus on one thing for the year. One goal, one thing I want to grow in or learn. While I might hit more than one thing, focusing on one thing not only helps me accomplish what I set out to do but also brings a lot of focus to my life. 

Over the years, I have loved the power of having a word for the year. A word that describes the kind of person I hope to become, the kind of follower of Jesus, husband, father, friend, sibling, and boss. 

One word. One focus. 

How do you come up with that? Here are a few simple steps to do one your own:

How to find your word for the year.

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1. Ask the question: What kind of person do I want to become in the coming year? Another way to ask this is, If I become more like Jesus in the next year, what would that mean? I would encourage you to make a list. You don’t need to narrow it down yet, and your list can be as long as you want.

If I become more like Jesus in the next year, what would that mean?

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You can focus on your most important relationships: parent, spouse, friend, boss, employee, child. 

Your list might have words like generous, patient, joyful, calm, faith, etc. But, again, you aren’t narrowing it down yet; you are brainstorming what God is putting on your heart. 

I think it is good to have this be your own word because it might be different from your spouse or your family. I think it is a good idea for each person to do this on their own and then come together to see what God might be saying to your spouse or family.

2. Pray through what comes to mind. Now is when you want to start editing your list and asking God for help.

Are there words that stand out? Are there words you’d like to avoid? I often find my word is one I’d rather not focus on. 

Maybe as you think through this, you will start to see words around or come up in conversations. If that happens, that’s a way of God speaking to you for your year. 

You can also share your list with your spouse or a friend to ask if they have any insight. God will often use someone else to speak to us. 

My focus for the year is often found in the things I’d rather not grow in.

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3. Find a Scripture connected to your word. I’d encourage you as well to find a verse related to your word, a passage that you want to focus on for the year. It might also be a verse that you plan to memorize. Put this verse in a place where you will see it often. If you need help, you can search here.

4. Share your word. Once you have it, please share it with your spouse, small group, and online.

When we verbalize something, we are more likely to remember it, focus on it, and live it out. You can use it as wallpaper on your phone or a screen saver.

5. Live your word. Look for ways to live out your word. Maybe try to find a book or podcast about your word that you can read and spend intentional time growing in.

I’d also encourage you in your community group to pull your words out each month and share how you are doing, celebrate how you are growing, and encourage each other when you fall behind. 

5 steps to find your word for the year.

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Links for Leaders 4/6/18

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It’s the weekend…finally. Today is a special day as it is mine and Katie’s 16th anniversary! So that’s fun. We’re working on a post about some of the things we wished we would’ve known when we got married, so stay tuned for that.

We’re spending it with our 5 kids traveling to Pennsylvania for my grandmother’s memorial service. So we’d appreciate your prayers for that (and the people who have to sit next to us on the plane).

And since it’s the weekend, it’s the perfect time to catch up on some reading. Below, you’ll find some articles I came across this week that I found helpful as a leader and parent and hope you do as well.

Before diving into those, in case you missed them this week. Here are the top 3 posts on my blog this week that I hope you find helpful:

Here are the posts I enjoyed:

It is easy to get tired as a leader or get stale, but staying fresh is important as a leader. Scott Cochrane shares 3 ideas to stay fresh and why it matters.

If you speak every week (or almost every week), understanding your audience is crucial.

Focus as a leader is crucial to success, but also incredibly difficult to have. Here are 8 ways to focus instead of multi-task as a leader. 

Inspiring people as a leader and a speaker is crucial and Kurt Bubna shares the secret to that.

Growth is crucial for a leader and a church or business and everyone desires growth, but many times we run into invisible barriers without realizing it. Here are 7 big barriers to church growth.

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How to Focus

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If you’re anything like me, you need to focus. There are times when you need to hunker down and get things done. Yet, your mind wanders. You daydream or think about what will happen later today or tomorrow. It could be a conversation, a meeting or a vacation you can’t wait to start.

Your lack of focus might come from no desire to do what you are doing, how hard something is or because you didn’t sleep well last night.

Many times the reason I am not able to focus well is because of the whirlwind around.

Focus comes from having “white space.” This is the place where you are able to shut down social media or email and think. To narrow down what matters the most right now.

I’ve heard John Maxwell say that leaders could stop doing 80% of what they’re doing and no one would notice. That feels high, but there is some merit to it.

Each day you must be able to say, “If I accomplish nothing else today, here’s what must get done.” That focus helps you to stay on track.

When you find your brain wandering, stand up, walk around, get some fresh air and then return to something.

Focus for Your Church or Organization

Focus doesn’t just matter for you personally, but it has enormous implications for your team and your church.

Many teams lack focus. They are stuck in a whirlwind of activity, simply doing the thing right in front of them. In a church, this is easy to do because worship services come around with such regularity (every seven days), so there is a deadline to that whirlwind.

For our team, just like in our family, we talk through what is most important for the next 2-6 months as a team. What are we all going to be working on and moving towards?

Why Focus Matters

Without focus, anything and everything is important.

This is where many churches and people get off track in their lives and ministries.

Focus says, this matters more than that.

That is hard to say, because it determines ahead of time what you will think about, work on, spend money on and give manpower to.

Whether you sit down and write this out or say it, you do this exercise each day.

The ones who accomplish things and see greater effectiveness are the ones who decide this instead of falling into it.

The days that I flop into bed with a feeling of “what did I really accomplish today” are the days I wasn’t focused and allowed my day to get away from me.

Amazingly, as you read through the gospels you see the incredible focus that Jesus had. He was fully present wherever he went. Whether he was teaching, healing, resting, praying or spending time with his disciples, he was focused on what he was doing. When you think about what he did, you also get a sense of the things he didn’t do. He made the choices we have to make each and everyday: what will get our time, energy and attention.