What can you do to have a healthy ministry or business? How do you refuel to keep your edge? Just listened to a short interview of a church planter who has been at his work now for five years (sorry, I don't recall his name). When asked how he keeps focused and fresh in his work, these are some of the points where he focused.
- Invest in your staff. Wow! This is important. Thinking about the investment that Christ made in his disciples really makes this point stand out. Both the senior pastor and CEO should see that their staff are the empowering arms of the work. He cannot do it alone. Everyone needs to be on the same page. The vision needs to be constantly restated. Accountability and openness keeps the ship moving forward and on course. This can require a financial investment, providing for those times to take staff to retreats or to provide for training and education so that they can gain and/or maintain their edge in their work.
- Be a specialist in your area of service. A senior staff member should grow from being the P/R guy. He ought to find those elements where he is strongest and to focus on them. A video editor should focus on his editing, not on handling the technical troubleshooting of problematic equipment. When workers can be specialists it provides a great sense of fulfillment which energizes to further success.
- Maintain a relationship with your spouse. Marriage is a great thing. Yet, it requires work to keep it active, fresh, and growing. Trust and open communication must be established. Teamwork has to be built. The gentleman interviewed had said that as he moves into increasingly higher steps in his ministry and approaches large steps in his work he sits down with his wife to discuss whether she is willing to help him in accomplishing the goal. Marriages that have multiplicity will not last - the goal must be single.
Hopefully I can remember these great points. I honestly need to an inventory to make sure that I am focused on what's important in my work.
