Break The Cycle

If you are like me, you are constantly doing laundry. As soon as I get the laundry washed, folded, and put away, there is a new pile waiting for me in the hamper. This is especially true if you are doing laundry for your entire family. I have been married thirty-three years, so I like to think I have a handle on how to keep the laundry under control; but there are times throughout the year when I can’t seem to stay ahead of it no matter how hard I try.

Leadership and in particular leadership in bi-vocational ministry can be a lot like doing laundry. One event occurs and the next one is right around the corner. It’s difficult enough to find the time to adequately prepare for the coming week’s activities and events, while maintaining your full-time job and responsibilities outside of your ministry. Somehow, you manage to get everything done and you are back at it again the next week. This is what I like to call the rinse and repeat cycle. The weeks come and go so quickly, we find ourselves simply repeating what worked, or what did not, because we don’t have enough days in the week to break the cycle.

At the end of every year, I think about what I would like to accomplish in the coming year in my area of ministry, but before I have even had time to spend any time in thought or planning, the new year has begun, and I am off and running again. If I am not careful, I will simply rinse and repeat the events and activities of last year, even though my that was not my original intention. This brings me back to the laundry. I have a pair of jeans that I really love to wear. I love the cut and the style, and I wear them at least once a week. The last time I wore them, I noticed a stain on one of the pant legs under the pocket. It’s not too visible if you are standing a few feet away but I can see the stain every time I wear them. I put them on a few days ago without even thinking about the stain and realized half-way through the day “there’s that stain! I really need to do something about it before I wear them again.” What do I need to do? I need to put a dab of stain remover on them and give them a good soak!

When you soak a garment to get a stain out, you treat the stain and then let it sit in water long enough to loosen the particle in the stain. Most of the time, when you wash the garment again after treating the stain and letting it run in a soak cycle, the stain will be gone during the next wash. This stain on my jeans got me thinking about my ministry and how I can approach the year ahead. I am going to break it down for you. For my year in ministry to be more than a rinse and repeat of last year, I must make time to run the SOAK cycle. In this cycle, I will set the ministry schedule on a 12-month rolling cycle, by evaluating the previous 12 months based on opportunities and observations and asking important questions to assess whether they were successful based on the kingdom goals of the ministry. The SOAK cycle does not have to be long, but it does need to be long enough to complete a proper evaluation.  Doing this will help me avoid the rinse and repeat cycle while allowing me to make the changes needed while simultaneously keeping the ongoing schedule moving forward.

S – SET THE SCHEDULE on a 12-month rolling calendar, adding key events and activities

O – OPPORTUNITIES AND OBSERVATIONS

A – ASK QUESTIONS AND ASSESS OUTCOMES

K – KEEP OR KNOCK OUT EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES BASED ON KINGDOM GOALS

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