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Are You Reactive Or Proactive?

March 31, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I read this post today from Chris Wesley and it’s one that really got me thinking. Do I try and prevent fires from starting in my ministry, or am I waiting too long and having to put fires out? Check out the tease below, the entire post can be found here.

Everyone likes to be ahead.  When you are ahead you feel more in control, you feel like you are at a manageable pace and life is good.  To fall behind can happen for a number of reasons.  If you are tired, confused or, overwhelmed it’s easy to let the work pile up.  In youth ministry, falling behind is constantly checking emails, always responding to phone calls, putting together projects last minute, not knowing what you are going to talk about tonight, etc.

What if that could change?  What if you could be ahead of the curve?

The reason you are falling behind is because you’ve learned to be reactive instead of proactive in your ministry.  To become proactive one must be intentional or else you let life happen and you are playing catch up.  If you spend the majority of your time trying to keep up then you’ll miss the important aspects of ministry, like building relationships.  So, you want to get ahead; however, to get there you need to know what reactive ministry looks like compared to proactive.

Reactive: You Change Because Something Happens - Proactive: You Change Paradigms
When you get behind you are at the mercy of the leader.  If they do this, then you have to do that.  Granted we’ll never be in total control; however, as youth ministers we have the responsibility to change paradigms.  You could be evolving what ministry looks like in your church or you could initiate a project that changes the way teens share Christ.  The idea is to look at the paradigms, problems and characteristics that shape and limit you ministry and ask, “How can we improve on it?”

Reactive: You Look To Make Things Right - Proactive: You Always Set High Expectations
When you mess up you know that an apology is necessary.  When you make a mistake, it’s important to make it right.  There is no way of being perfect; however, if you spend your time focusing on NOT messing up you’ll never be satisfied.  Instead, you need to focus on how you CAN be better by setting goals and expectations.  When we change the perspective from negative to positive we live up to the challenge.  If you are always worried about messing up instead of focused on success you’ll find yourself frustrated.
Filed Under: Repost, Spriritual Life, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Why Everyone Needs a Whiteboard

January 7, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I love this post from Chris Wesley at Marathon Youth Ministry. It’s a simple idea but one that has a lot of merit. Here’s a tease of the post below. You can find the entire post here.

I have the habit of writing things down…good for me, right?  Well, it’s good that I write a lot of things down; however, I tend to write them on anything from napkins to the pant leg of my jeans.  Regardless of where you write your ideas down, you need to get them out of your head.  When you do this:

  1. Your More Likely To Remember Your Ideas: Something intangible becomes tangible.  The idea is no longer a concept, but a reality.
  2. Your More Likely To Act Upon It: If it’s in front of you, it will serve as a reminder.  What you see you cannot ignore, it can even haunt you.  That’s why you need to be careful what you tweet.
  3. Small Ideas Will Grow: Sometimes it takes multiple looks before you get the whole picture.  It might start with a word, and then grow into a story.  When an idea is out of your head and into the open it is limitless.
Filed Under: Repost, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , ,