Keeping Focused on What Matters Most
Keeping focused can be quite challenging these days.
There’s so many things that distract us. That’s why we try to make time to help churches review their visionary plans. And back in April we met with the Living Hope Church to help them review their progress on their Visionary Plan.
Almost two years ago their team had crafted a plan to “create a culture of discipleship in our church.” Their plan involved everything from updating parts of their building to planning for the Christmas season and, of course, implementing their disciple-making plan. Then an opportunity came their way which felt like God was opening a door.
Another local church with was looking to partner with them to reach the surrounding community. Living Hope, for their part, had also been dreaming about how to better reach the community. The two churches began exploring every angle from merging to partnering on events. For 9 months they talked and pushed ideas back and forth.
While both churches were open to the idea little progress was made in creating a partnership. That’s when the pastor of Living Hope asked God to bring clarity to the situation and God did. In that moment Living Hope pivoted back to their visionary plan.
We led their team through a review process by asking four simple questions.
What frustrated them throughout the last year?
Where did they fail in the past year?
What battles did they find themselves fighting against outside sources?
Where did they see breakthrough?
Through these questions the team began to realize how much time and effort went into conversations with the other church. So much time and effort that it caused them to shift their focus away from their own plans. So, in the three months leading up to our review, Living Hope reinvested in their plan. Here's what happened when they did:
They began to see new people connecting to the church through groups who were meeting outside of the church building.
The leaders noticed a sense of "buy-in" throughout the congregation. There was a noticeable buzz about making disciples.
There was a strengthening happening in the groups that were already established.
A church in Kenya began interacting with Living Hope and a partnership was created. Living Hope now sponsors a school alongside the church.
This was all good. But the most important breakthrough came in the number of baptisms Living Hope experienced. In the months surrounding our review the church baptized or planned to baptize more people than they had in the previous 5 years!
As we often admit, this isn’t because of some magic our team performed. Rather, we like to believe we helped the church clarify what God was already doing and supported them as they kept their focus on following that plan.