Accelerating Change

Kenny Conley

I hope you had a wonderful Easter. This week, Kenny Conley offered to share some content for our blog that he wrote specifically for leaders that attended ICM.

Kenny recently published a dynamic book about leadership in Children’s Ministry.  I will be sharing more about the resource next week. We also plan to catch up with Joy Bowen and Brian Dollar, two other speakers from ICM, in the near future.  Be on the lookout for an upcoming interview with Kathy Creasy. She has been training leaders in several different countries and she has many exciting stories to share!

I hope you enjoy the post:

Last year I read several books about change and getting things done. Like many people, I can get overwhelmed with all the things that need to be done. I find myself desiring to make many changes, but my pace is sluggish. That’s the reality of being under-staffed and under-resourced, plus we only get 24-hours in a day, right?

I’ve learned that there is something highly motivating about seeing results. It inspires others and keeps us going even when progress is far slower than we would like. Many years ago I wrote about a similar concept in regard to construction. So, even though true progress is often slow, sometimes it’s important to accelerate change.

Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University puts this concept to practice in their second baby step, the debt snowball. In this step, you pay down your smallest credit card as quickly as possible and only pay the minimum payments on everything else. Once you’ve paid off the first card, celebrate and apply everything toward the next smallest card. Keep doing this until you knock them off one at a time. This practice keeps you motivated, and allows you to experience successes and milestones until you are debt free.

I remember taking my leadership team to a retreat many years ago. At the retreat, we talked about making some pretty significant changes that would likely take many years to pull off. However, just before concluding the retreat, we each came up with a short list of simple things that we could do right away with very little effort that would make an immediate difference. I was surprised by how many ideas we came up with, like simply painting an entry way or rearranging the way parents checked their kids in. While we began the work of initiating huge ministry changes that would be time consuming, we quickly put several of the quick fixes to work and enjoyed the immediate success they brought.

So whether you’re stuck in the tedious work of progress or simply trying to keep your head above water, always try to accelerate a little change. It could be as simple as gathering 3-5 parents for an extended lunch after church. Share a little vision for where things are heading and explain that you’d like to bring a little fresh energy to the ministry that comes with a few simple changes. Have everyone brainstorm some simple ideas, evaluate what would be easiest and most practical… and delegate away. Encourage your team that these ideas are things that you will do together.

You never know, this simple exercise of accelerating change may help some parents have greater ownership in your children’s ministry. This will far surpass the change you are trying to accomplish.