Is It A Dip Or A Dead End?
Seth Godin is one of my favorite business writers. He says that when we get into a difficult situation, we need to decide if it's a dip or a dead end. A dip means there's great success if you persevere through that difficult time. Dead End means there's no great success even if you persevere for a thousand years.
So ask yourself: When you get over this difficulty, will you be number one or number two in that niche? If not, it may be time to bail out. And look for an area where you can be great. Like I'll never be great in the food business, no matter how much I persevere with my food carts. But I knew that I'd be great if I just stick to my core gift of communication.
Same Thing In Ministry
When something isn't working, when something is causing pain, when something is not growing, be quiet. Listen to God's direction in your heart. He may not be asking you to change location, or change a job, or change a business, or change a relationship.
He may be asking you to change strategy.
Let me give you an example in my ministry. My spiritual family is Light of Jesus. For over 10 years, Light of Jesus was stuck. Like we were stranded. Our growth was stagnant. We tried various ways to make Light of Jesus grow, but we felt like we were ramming our heads on an iron ceiling. For years, Light of Jesus got stuck with 2000+ members. We tried everything. We gave Life in the Spirit seminars, built prayer meetings left and right, but nothing was working.
Psalms 119:71 says, My suffering was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees. Our suffering made us listen to God. And He spoke to us. He led us to change strategy. And the results have been mind-boggling.
From "Chapters", we created "Feasts". Here's the big difference: Chapters were traditional, religious prayer meetings for "Insiders". Feasts were wild parties, radically obsessed to reach "Outsiders".
Basically, God told to us, "Forget yourself. Love your neighbor." In the old structure, we were serving ourselves. We spoke our own language (Christianese). We designed all our events for us, locals. But God led us to give up our selfishness and love those who didn't belong to our group. We began to design the entire event for those who felt out of place in church.
What happened? We shattered that iron ceiling. Two weeks ago, we were expecting 6000 people to come to our Easter celebration. But on that day, 9000+ came-and that's just for Metro Manila alone. For one year, Light of Jesus has been growing explosively.
Friend, do you feel that you're stuck? Do you feel that life is stagnant? That you're not growing? Listen to God's voice. He may be asking you to change your strategy. Don't be attached to how you did things before. Because what brought you to where you are now may not bring you to where you want to go.
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