Do This And Prosper/Do This And End Up In Poverty

How can you and your church or organization "prosper"?

This verse offers two requirements:
1) Plan Well
2) Work Hard.

Some Christian leaders wonder if planning is even a spiritually correct thing to do. Yet, we see it all throughout the Bible. The Israelites planned the taking of the Promised Land. Jesus stayed up all night and planned who and how He would call His disciples. Paul planned, throughly, his church planting trips. In fact, there was careful planning evidenced in all of the ways that the early church spread the gospel.

However, they did not plan without asking and considering what God was up to. In each of these cases they planned, but they also consulted with God and whenever someone disregarded God's input or agreement, they got themselves in trouble. So, plan! In fact, as a leadership coach, I'm here to encourage and help you do just that. But pray as well. Determine what God's purpose and will is and be a part of what He is planning. 

However, planning, while important, is not enough. As leaders, we need to work the plan. It is all to easy, I've done it myself, to put plans on paper, make the notebooks look great, pat ourselves on the back, and never do anything with those plans.

Prosperity comes when we seek God, plan with Him, and then do what we plan.

Beyond that, it's not enough to simply do the plan. Note the other word: work HARD! That means we have to be diligent in the pursuit of the plan. It is easy to get lackadaisical and fall back on simply hoping for the best--simply being lazy while we call it "faith". 

There are other leaders who work too much. They feel like they can bring about success simply through effort--and lots of it. The key is committed diligence but in the right and consistent direction. That is where the plan comes it--it is a force multiplier that keeps your efforts moving in the right direction.
This is where a good coach comes in. They will ask you the hard questions and make sure your are working the plan that you discovered and set with God.

Finally, this verse also tells us what one thing must be avoided: "hasty shortcuts".

When I was a boy, I loved to find shortcuts for any trail. I grew up with a handicap and wore a brace as a result of contracting polio before I was two. So, the best way to get in front of my always-to-be-competed-with brothers was find the short cuts and beat them to the bottom of the trail.

However, I discovered a couple of things the hard way: 

1. Shortcuts are dangerous. When you are off the beaten path, you never know when you will find yourself going over a cliff or tripping on a root. When you take organizational shortcuts, you may not have thought through the implications of your action and who or what may be hurt by your choices.
   
   
2. Shortcuts are narrow. They are usually not designed to bring the whole team or community through. The consequence is that maybe the lone wolf leader will get to the goal, it may be at the cost of the unity of the whole. This leads to resentment and lost of ownership of the goal. The next time your team may say, "OK, you do it yourself--that's what you like to do anyway!"

So, if you want to prosper. If you are looking for your church or organization to thrive, plan well, work hard and don't take shortcuts. 

Would you like to have a coach help you walk through the planning and implementation process? 

Write me at Randall@vision2lead.coach. 

You will be surprised how affordable it is.