Last night I watched a You Tube video of John Maxwell teaching on being intentional about personal growth. He was using material from one of his books, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential. This is a great book that I re-read every couple of years.
One of the things he said in the video that really caught my attention was that when you are intentional in the things you do, you do not accept life. You make life.
Many people today accept whatever life brings their way. We may complain about it, and even despise it, but few people do anything to change their lives. Many want the government or someone else to come in and improve their situation and may even become offended if someone suggests that they take steps to improve their own lives.
As leaders, we cannot take our people further than we have traveled. If we are not growing, we cannot grow others. Every leader must have a plan for continual growth or he or she will not remain a leader for long.
As pastors we must be intentional about improving our communication skills, our leadership skills, and our relational skills. We must be intentional about growing in our knowledge of Scripture. In my present ministry some have assumed I am simply preaching the sermons I preached while pastor at Hebron BC. Actually, I've used almost none of those messages because I've grown in my knowledge of the Scriptures. Those messages were for a different time and a different church. They are not especially applicable for today and this church. I think, I pray, the sermons I preach today are deeper and more relevant than the ones I preached 15-20 years ago.
Churches complain about not growing, but what are they intentionally doing to grow. As I've told many churches, if you could grow by doing what you've been doing, you would already be growing. Obviously, you need to do something different if you are serious about growing. Growing a church is no different than growing personally. It requires intentionality and a plan.
It also requires that you start following the plan. Perhaps the most important decision you will make about your growth is the decision to start. Nothing happens until you actually begin the process. You can dream all you want, you can plan all you want, you can pray all you want, but until you actually start nothing will happen.
Commit today to a life of personal growth. There are many programs that can assist you in that growth. Commit today to seeing growth in your church. There are also many tools to help you achieve that. Find the tools that will help you and then start using them.
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