As I was sitting in the DMV I was reflecting on a few things. As leaders grow and as you take a moment to look at your ministry and you want to begin to make adjustments its really easy to just go and do it. If you’re anything like me, you are constantly looking at your ministry, leaders, program, small groups, new volunteers, interns and students all at the same time and trying to figure out where to go next. It can be a little daunting right? 6 months ago we made a huge program shift. 4 weeks ago we launched small groups. These are huge things to take on and I’m sure you got something cooking as well.
From my experience with talking with a lot of young leaders who want to see their ministry grow I have heard over and over the same mistake when it comes to planning and executing a big next step.
They move before they feel God telling them to move.
What do I mean by that? The tendency is because we are so excited to move in our ministry, we don’t bring whatever that next thing is to God. We jump the gun. We move because we love to see movement but we can’t forget to go before Jesus and let Him tell us what He thinks. Looking back, in the 2 big movements our ministry just experienced, our team spent hours in prayer and discussion before pulling the trigger and I believe they have been successful because we all felt the Lord was in support of what we were doing.
At the same time, I have felt the opposite way too. Our team was planning on doing a winter retreat type situation at one of our campuses this year and through taking some time to pray about this event, I just got the feeling that we were supposed to wait and that we were trying to do so much. So we cancelled it. We wont know the result of this decision until later, but knowing we went before the Lord with it and came up with this decision eases my mind as the leader.
So when you plan, plan big, but don’t forget to go to Jesus first. He is greater than any program, philosophy, method or event you are doing and as a ministry, as a youth pastor, we don’t want to go anywhere where Jesus is not.
Don’t just do stuff just to do stuff. Do things that bring students to Jesus and make sure as the leader that He is in it first.
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