a: ardent affection : love
Like most people working or volunteering in ministry, with tight budgets come expanded roles. Throughout our days and tasks, Director of Operations often translates to spill cleaner, Director of Communications sometimes translates to receptionist, Children's Pastor often translates to babysitter, Trustee often translates to usher, and Senior Pastor sometimes translates to the dude BBQing at the church picnic.
Reflect for a moment about your specific job responsibilities and the teams you lead.
What areas are you passionate about? What areas are bundled into your package of responsibilities that are easy for you to neglect?
The areas we are passionate about take little effort on our part. After all, our passions connected to our relationship with Christ are what brought us to ministry in the first place. So, I would rather help you pinpoint the duties you neglect because of your natural passion in other areas.
When you are not passionate about something:
• People see it. You are always being watched because most volunteers want to emulate what you do and how you act. When you aren’t passionate about something, people can tell.
• Your volunteers and ministry leaders will feed off of you. For example: If you want all of your teams to be welcoming, but you are not passionate about your usher team, that usher team will be your least welcoming team.
• It becomes your crippled leg. For example: I oversee retail operations at Grace. This includes our cafe, bookstore and rentals. I love the cafe. I come more from that background than the bookstore background. I apply a lot of time, but little energy towards the cafe and love watching it grow. The results have been huge. At the same time, despite feeling and knowing the strong sense of purpose the bookstore brings to the church and wanting it to succeed, I end up applying little time, and a lot of energy towards the bookstore. Let's just say, the results have not been staggering.
When you are passionate about something, you don't need to post reminders in your blackberry or have a bunch of sticky notes on the edges of your monitor screen. You can put more of that effort toward what you are not passionate about.
Some initiatives to help you do this:
• Remind yourself that people are watching you. Sell new initiatives and ministry goals well to your teams. Force yourself to get as excited as you would when you interact with a passion driving team.
• When you can, place ministry leaders around you that live and breathe the passions you don't. If chosen correctly, this person will be knocking down your door with ideas and their example allowing you to feed off of their passion.
• Remind yourself daily and weekly to evaluate the areas you lack passion for. Remember that these areas don't come naturally to you. They are not your comfort zone. You put them off for a reason.
WARNING: Be careful. Initiative and effort toward areas you lack passion for can sometimes lead to a new found passion. That can happen when you pour a little bit of YOU into something.
