Discipline Yourself To Dream
We have had a busy season at Grace Community Church. Fall is the time of year when most churches ramp up their ministries, which tracks with back-to-school schedules and the change to cooler weather. Our church has been in a fast growth mode since day one, but we seem to be in a unique place of extraordinary growth right now. In addition to this growth we are launching new small groups, a college ministry, gearing up for our annual community outreach ministry, and adding a third service, along with numerous other changes occurring this fall, some that we are not ready to talk about yet. Some days it seems we have just enough energy to get through another week and all our time is focused on the next Sunday.
At our most recent staff meeting, in the midst of making plans for our new third service, I reminded the staff of an important principle. (I hope they were listening.) During times of significant growth, planning or workload, it is always important to…
…DISIPLINE YOURSELF TO DREAM….
During the busiest times in an organization, when all the team’s energies are focused on getting through a specific project or season, if the team is not disciplined otherwise, because habits form quickly, there is a tendency to continue operating in the day-to-day mode even after the busy season passes. I expanded on that idea in a previous post. Read that post HERE.
Teams that want to experience long-term growth have to discipline themselves to build dreaming into the system. Leaders should model innovative thinking during stressful periods within the organization. Individual team members need to consciously pick their head up from the routines and strategically think further down the road for the organization.
Dreaming keeps momentum flowing forward. The next great decisions made by the Grace Community Church staff will likely come from our time set aside to dream.
Do you need to set aside time this week just to dream?
One response to "Discipline Yourself To Dream"
I totally agree. We all need to set aside time to dream, and so few people are doing that these days. I think the economy has bogged down many people, and that’s a mistake. Our circumstances now should not define our future.