Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Clarify The Win

I've been listening to a series by Andy Stanley called "The 7 Keys to Effective Ministry" (- which you can download for free - just go to www.northpoint.org click on church leaders, then click on pratically speaking). The first session is "Claifying the Win". Excellent!
What Stanley says is this - most churches have a mission statement; however, what gets "put on the wall doesn't always take place down the hall." How true! In other words, our mission statements haven't changed how most churches operate.
So, according to Stanley, we must clarify the win. For example, most times we simply let attendance be our watermark. Wow, we had a packed house today! Instead, Northpoint has clairified the win - if they have a first time visitor, is blown away by what they experience and they come back next Sunday - THAT is the win for them.
Many ministry leaders, Stanley says, are frustrated because the "win" is not clearly defined, so after a few years they resign from the ministry (sound familiar?) and go do something else.
So, what is the "win" for your ministry? congregation? family? for yourself?
At the end of the week, how do you know you have "won"? In a recent conversation with another minister, who himself told me about the series by Stanley, said that now for him the "win" watermark is that he calls 100 people and invites them to Sunday assembly (his own members included!). If he fails to do that, the week was not a 'win' for him.
What is your "win"?
BTW - these downloads are in MP3 format, so you can download them to your iPod or any MP3 player.

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