Small, Right Choices
Scripture speaks much about the worth of endurance. It seems to celebrate the saints that were considered plodders. Even contemporary business success illustrates the point that there is no magic moment when you want to move from good to great. Company CEOs from Fortune 500 names like Walmart, Pitney Bowes, Walgreens and Wells Fargo, repeatedly stress that big success came very slowly, without the drama that onlookers probably assumed was present. The CEOs said turning points came from a slow, deliberate process of figuring out what needed to be done to create the best future results…and then simply taking those steps, one after the other.
My favorite basketball coach, John Wooden, led the UCLA Bruins to ten NCAA Championships in only twelve years! How did he earn that amazing record? For 15 years Coach Wooden worked with his teams in relative obscurity, building the foundations of a winning team, before winning his first championship in 1964. Jesus Christ, Himself, spent 30 years quietly learning the lessons and making the small right decisions that would bring Him to the greatest moment in history.
Never underestimate the strategic importance of making small, right choices in youth ministry OVER THE LONG HAUL. No, you won't wake up one morning and magically find that your youth ministry has suddenly exploded (though a short-term explosion joyously happens for many of us). But like John Wooden and Jesus Christ both model for us, quiet and systematic progress towards a stated goal will eventually cause dramatic results.
And so, "Youth Ministry John Wooden," shut your computer down and prayerfully show up for practice again. And someday, in the corridors of heaven, people will be admiring your picture on the "All Star Wall." All because youth ministry legends rise and fall around the character to keep playing the game with all your heart...even during the non-glamorous, obscure seasons.
Scripture speaks much about the worth of endurance. It seems to celebrate the saints that were considered plodders. Even contemporary business success illustrates the point that there is no magic moment when you want to move from good to great. Company CEOs from Fortune 500 names like Walmart, Pitney Bowes, Walgreens and Wells Fargo, repeatedly stress that big success came very slowly, without the drama that onlookers probably assumed was present. The CEOs said turning points came from a slow, deliberate process of figuring out what needed to be done to create the best future results…and then simply taking those steps, one after the other.
My favorite basketball coach, John Wooden, led the UCLA Bruins to ten NCAA Championships in only twelve years! How did he earn that amazing record? For 15 years Coach Wooden worked with his teams in relative obscurity, building the foundations of a winning team, before winning his first championship in 1964. Jesus Christ, Himself, spent 30 years quietly learning the lessons and making the small right decisions that would bring Him to the greatest moment in history.
Never underestimate the strategic importance of making small, right choices in youth ministry OVER THE LONG HAUL. No, you won't wake up one morning and magically find that your youth ministry has suddenly exploded (though a short-term explosion joyously happens for many of us). But like John Wooden and Jesus Christ both model for us, quiet and systematic progress towards a stated goal will eventually cause dramatic results.
And so, "Youth Ministry John Wooden," shut your computer down and prayerfully show up for practice again. And someday, in the corridors of heaven, people will be admiring your picture on the "All Star Wall." All because youth ministry legends rise and fall around the character to keep playing the game with all your heart...even during the non-glamorous, obscure seasons.
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Jesus regularly went to the synagogue. David prayed seven times a day, and Daniel three. Zacchaeus offered sacrifices "as was his custom." What are your daily success rituals? Do you have any? Have you thought about them lately?
Honestly, we really don't decide our future, but decide our habits. Our habits, in turn, are what determine our future. The statement is so true, "The secret of our future can be found in our daily routines."
With that in mind, our daily routines are far too important not to intentionally spend some time focusing in on them. So grab your coffee, have a seat in your favorite chair and listen in as we get strategic in creating our daily success rituals.
Lovingly,
I love the Emerson quote, "The years will teach you what the days will never know." In this Youth Leader's Coach, I am going to take you on a journey with me through my years in ministry in an effort to stretch you and help you avoid potential pitfalls.
The journey God has you on is so worthwhile my friend. For every challenging moment I've encountered, I can't tell you how grateful I am that I didn't take the exits and detours that would have been so easy.
I want to be known, not as a person who is a great starter, but a great finisher. I want that for you as well.
In the trenches with you,
The reality is, how each of us choose to spend our time, will ultimately create how each of us choose to spend our life. However, it's all too easy to let our primary focus be inward, thinking of our own personal rights, to ever truly seize the day. But to be able to truly change my behavior, I must first change my perspective.
In this month's Source, "Carpe Diem," I'm challenging our students to seize the day on making some Christ-honoring choices that can set them up with a lifetime of success and happiness. Listen in, as you hear me illustrate the importance of how we spend our lives with some help from a powerful tape measure illustration, four lepers, and a clock ticking away in the background. It's my hope that we all say to the Lord, "Give me your kind of spiritual leprosy...so I don't waste my life spiritually having too much to lose."
Choosing to seize the day,
Someone asked me recently, “What are some things that would have helped you along the ministry journey if you would have known them when you started?” It started my heart and mind reaching back over the more than four decades of youth and young adult ministry experience to make some summations of some of what I’ve learned along the journey.
Listen in as I unpack 5 things that I most wish someone would have shared with me early on when I began in youth ministry. Many of these lessons I’ve learned the painful way. It is my prayer that I can encourage you by helping you avoid some of the same pitfalls I made in my journey.
Lovingly,
Next to George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln is consistently ranked by scholars and the public as one of the top three greatest presidents. So obviously, Abraham Lincoln has much to teach us on leadership. He was born in a log cabin, lost his mother at an early age, and unschooled, he was encouraged by his step-mother to learn to read...yet this unlikely man became president during the most difficult time in our country's history. Without his leadership, the country as we know it could have become an infinite number of smaller pieces. Lincoln's very genius as a leader and his success as president made him into a myth, obscuring the fact that his life before becoming president was unspectacular, and that whatever he knew about leading he had learned from those around him.
Let's take some time to look at the life of this intuitive, self-taught leader. He has much to teach us that applies to all forms of leadership, including to those of us in youth ministry.
Lovingly,
