“The Leader who does not seek the Kingdom of God first often does not seek it at all.” Blanchard and Hodges ~ The Servant Leader
As we discussed yesterday, Surrender is the process of seeking the will of God to find HIS mission or purpose for your ministry. It is foundational. It is the one thing that shapes, influences, determines and judges every decision and plan that you make for ministry. It is the final destination for the people you lead. It is impossible to overstate the ineffectiveness of a ministry that lacks clear vision or purpose. It is also impossible to ignore the fact that moving in a direction that is not aligned with the will of God will result in long-term failure, even if you find short-term success.
There are literally millions of people that have written about crafting and voicing you mission or purpose statement so I’m not going to explore that here, I am however going to look at couple of things that are often forgotten.
1.) Your mission/vision/purpose (MVP from here on out) will only be reached if you effectively communicate it to the people you are leading. To simplify this I’m going to take this discussion out of the spiritual and into the physical. Let say that I have sought God’s will and determined that the purpose of my ministry is to lead people to get to my church’s worship center. It is very important that I clearly communicate to my followers that that is our purpose. Most ministries communicate their purpose, but it has to be done effectively. I could say “the MVP of this ministry is lead people to the worship center of my church” (least effective). Or I could say “the MVP of this ministry is to lead people to the worship center of Milestones Church in Spartanburg, SC” (more effective). Or I could say “the MVP of this ministry is to lead people to the Worship Center of Milestone Church located at 899 Simuel Rd in Spartanburg, SC 29301″ (most effective). This not to discount catchy brief MVP statements, but to say that if that is the whole of your communication of MVP to your people, you will not be effective.
2.) MVP is almost always static and free of change. If you are properly striving to reach your MVP, then every strategy, plan, program, system and investment will be directly tied to and dependent on your MVP. Therefore, any redefinition of MVP will be very costly; not only in financial capital, but also in the capital of influence. It is possible that God will lead you to change you MVP, but that is cause to take a deep breathe and spend some extra time to make sure you are hearing the right thing from the right source. However, if you are in the process of determining that you failed to seek God fully in initially determining your MVP, and now feel that what God has for your ministry is completely different than what you have invested in up to this point, you can’t afford not to follow God and just deal with the costs.
Tomorrow we will look at ways that you can test your MVP!
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