A favorite date destination for my wife Sharon and me is a restaurant. Any restaurant. Nice places or fast food — we enjoy them all.
But there’s one catch. One thing we simply don’t understand: At decent places, why is the food often just “so-so”? Mediocre?
I swear if I owned a restaurant the first thing I’d be certain of is the food. It’s a restaurant essential.
What about places that serve spiritual food? Ministries? How are they doing on the essentials?
I get around to almost as many different ministries as I do restaurants. I see patterns, good and bad.
And over the next few weeks I’d like to share some ministry essentials that I believe determine the difference between the thriving and the dying.
Essential #1: Healthy at the core.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a 25-member campus fellowship or a church of 2,000, “healthy at the core” is an indispensable building block of a thriving ministry, in my view.
At an ethnic church in St. Paul where I serve as a mentor/coach, we’ve reconstructed the Leadership Team (LT) from the ground up. Healthy at the core for us includes these elements:
- Clear roles.
- Clear decision-making process.
- Meetings start and end on time.
- No free passes. That is, no one can no-show without letting someone know in advance.
- All calls/emails/texts are responded to within 24 hours.
- We mix interpersonal care and fun with business.
- We pray and study scripture together regularly.
- We’re not in a hurry.
