Are you wrestling with the tug-of-war between swift action and painstaking diligence in your church leadership decisions? Let's navigate this terrain together, as I draw upon my nearly four decades of pastoral experience to offer a strategy that marries the need for speed with the grace of 'roughly right' judgment. Inspired by Rita Gunther McGrath's insights on the delicate balance between quickness and accuracy in decision-making, this episode is an invaluable resource for church leaders seeking to lead with confidence and adaptability.
Facing a decision can feel like standing at a crossroads with the weight of your congregation's future on your shoulders. In our discussion, we dissect the reasons behind hesitancy and the allure of waiting for the perfect moment to decide—which often doesn't arrive. I share a proactive framework that fuses gathering essential information and seeking divine guidance with making informed, timely decisions. Learn why taking risks and being prepared to pivot is integral to effective leadership, and how the courage to act can be the very thing that shapes the future of your ministry. Join us for an empowering conversation that promises to challenge and transform your approach to church leadership decision-making.
Are you wrestling with the tug-of-war between swift action and painstaking diligence in your church leadership decisions? Let's navigate this terrain together, as I draw upon my nearly four decades of pastoral experience to offer a strategy that marries the need for speed with the grace of 'roughly right' judgment. Inspired by Rita Gunther McGrath's insights on the delicate balance between quickness and accuracy in decision-making, this episode is an invaluable resource for church leaders seeking to lead with confidence and adaptability.
Facing a decision can feel like standing at a crossroads with the weight of your congregation's future on your shoulders. In our discussion, we dissect the reasons behind hesitancy and the allure of waiting for the perfect moment to decide—which often doesn't arrive. I share a proactive framework that fuses gathering essential information and seeking divine guidance with making informed, timely decisions. Learn why taking risks and being prepared to pivot is integral to effective leadership, and how the courage to act can be the very thing that shapes the future of your ministry. Join us for an empowering conversation that promises to challenge and transform your approach to church leadership decision-making.
Do you have trouble making decisions sometimes as a church leader, sometimes you have to make tons and tons of decisions. Some of them are small decisions that are very easy to make. Others are really kind of monumental decisions. They affect not only maybe you personally and your ministry, but also the future ministry decisions. They affect not only maybe, you personally and your ministry, but also the future ministry of your church, your staff and your congregation, and those decisions are really difficult to make. So how do you make decisions? And I'm going to give you a plan to make decisions fast and roughly right. That's what we're going to talk about today on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Thanks for joining us. I'm not sure how you found us, but I'm glad you did. We're here every Monday through Friday for five to 10 minutes of encouragement and leadership advice and just an opportunity for me to share some of the things that I've learned through almost and this pains me to say almost 40 years of ministry. So I'm glad you're here. Today. We're talking about how to make decisions fast and roughly. I want to start off with a quote. It's from a gal named Rita Gunther McGrath and she says you can make a faster decision, a quicker decision that's roughly right and fast, or you can make a decision that's incredibly slow but can be precise.
Speaker 1:
And as church leaders, I think many times we wait too long to make decisions. I've seen pastors and boards take months to make a decision that I would have probably made in five minutes or maybe at least a week. Now I don't consider myself a rash kind of guy, but you can only collect information for a period of time and then it's time to make the dang decision. What more information do you need to make your decision? Will you have any better information in six months to make a decision about starting that new service? Do you want to make a change to your team? But will you mill it over for weeks or months or a year and a half? A lot of times we do, and I asked the question why? And it's pretty simple and pretty logical and it makes sense, and here's why we take so long to make even big decisions or sometimes even smaller decisions. Here's the reason Because everybody wants to make the best decisions. Everybody wants to make it, nobody wants to get it wrong, and we always feel that we'll have better information soon that will help make our decision clear. But in reality. Most of the time, we know that's just not true.
Speaker 1:
In matters other than theology, my approach would usually go along with what the quote is saying go for fast and be roughly right. In almost every situation. You can change your decision if you're wrong and people will forgive you. But what they won't forgive is a leader that can't make a decision to save his own life. Don't be that guy, don't be that gal. So I know this may be a little controversial and I know that maybe you're facing some really tough decisions, and I'm not saying you need to be rash and make decisions right now.
Speaker 1:
You don't make snap decisions. A lot of times. If you make snap decisions, they can be bad decisions, but when you come to a point, in whatever it is, you're trying to make a decision on that, you realistically have prayed about it. You've looked at all of the things that you have available on the table in front of you to make a decision on that. You realistically have prayed about it. You've looked at all of the things that you have available on the table in front of you to make this decision and that there's probably not going to be any more information you're going to get in the next week or the next month or the next year. That's going to help you make a better decision. Try and make the roughly right decision. Of course you need to look at the consequences of what if you make a bad decision. But, as Rita says, most of the time the roughly right decision will serve you and your church probably pretty well. And if you're a good leader and you make a bad call, there's usually numerous opportunities that you can make your way back and ask for forgiveness if you need to ask for forgiveness, but try something new if the decision you make doesn't turn out to be exactly right.
Speaker 1:
This may be controversial. I would love to hear your feedback on it. How do you make decisions? How do you know? I would love to hear from you how do you know when to make the decision and how do you know when you've waited too long? I see this all the time in staffing. It's either when you feel like at your church you need to make either a hiring decision or a firing decision. A lot of times it's either one or the other. It's too snap, it's too quick, it's I'm going to make the decision. I'm going to make it now and do it immediately, or you wait that year and a half and everything suffers because you wait too long to make decisions. How do you determine how to make your decisions not just on staffing, but major ministry decisions in your church? I would love to hear. Send me an email.
Speaker 1:
Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. I would love to learn from you. Reach out to me anytime. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. Hey, I hope you have a great weekend. Join us back here again on Monday. On Monday, we are going to be talking about how to minimize the gap between ineffective and fruitful ministry. You won't want to miss it. That's Monday, right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Talk to you then.