Letting go...

All right all of you micro-managers out there, listen up. What I am about to say is going to shock you beyond all belief, but you need to give up control if you ever truly want to be the leader of your own youth group. The days of owning your ministry and not letting anyone else in, well – is out. Actually, it was never really ever in. You just thought it was. I know I did. I was the guy who thought that I have to have my footprint on every single part of the ministry. And there were a couple of reasons for this.

The first is that I thought if I did not do everything and have influence over a certain program or event then I was losing control of the group. And this goes for those of you who have ministries of ten or even a thousand. It does not matter. What is true is that you need to learn to give stuff up and know that it is going to be good for the group. And some of you are thinking, yeah that is good for you, MO, but in my group my leaders are out of control and if I don't know what is going on all the time then something will burn down. That may very well be true. However, if that is the case then you have a much bigger problem.

If you do not trust your small group leaders to lead, then they are not leaders. And by definition, you are not a leader – or at least a very good one. Harsh? Not really. That is your job. You are the one that needs to know the pulse. And if you can get to the point where you know the pulse, and that is good enuff, then you are on your way. On your way to what you may be wondering. On your way to a less-stress ministry and and better use of your time and talents. Which brings me to my second point.

Along with being able to give up complete control of everything in your entire ministry on a micro-scale, the other reason you have to get this concept is because you are not good at everything. You are good at a couple to a few tasks and talents and the rest you are not. Some of you may be better at a larger number of stuff. And for those of you who fit this category I am concerned. The more skills you have the harder it is to give influence and responsibility away. Casey Stengel once said about being a baseball manager, “Managing is getting paid for home runs someone else hits.” huh??? yes, this is your job. You are hired to make sure others hit home-runs. And when they do, they get all the credit and you keep your job. It is when your staff members, paid and unpaid, stop producing that you will be the one to get the boot. And rightly so.

If you are not adding value to your leaders and giving them more responsibility and influence in your ministry, you will ultimately burn out and fail. It will not be seen as noble that you cannot handle your ministry because there is so much on your plate. It will be looked at as being irresponsible. And if you get to this point then you will be forced to learn and correct your thinking before you will ever be effective in a significant way. So, give away responsibility and influence whenever you can. This will push your leadership beyond what you can handle and let God work the rest.