Focus
May 12, 2009 Print This Post
This last week, we had a staff / key volunteer retreat at Riv. The theme of the retreat (as well as this next year for the church) is Focus and Empowerment. I thought in light of these two things, I’d do a couple posts on the topic.
Today, I want to reflect a bit on Focus. At Riv, we have limited resources when it comes to budget and staff. We have 1/4 the budget of the average church our size and the smallest paid staff of any church our size in America. The positive in this is that we don’t have the luxury of doing “too many things.” We need to focus.
And it’s not just organizations who have to face this, individuals need to face it, too. We all have a tendency to drift away from the “main things” in our lives, jobs, marriages, and churches.
The first church faced this situation in Acts 6, as did the leaders. The Apostles were faced with a crisis in their schedules that threatened the focus of the church.
Acts 6:1 But as the believers rapidly multiplied, there were rumblings of discontent. The Greek-speaking believers complained about the Hebrew-speaking believers, saying that their widows were being discriminated against in the daily distribution of food.
This was the first real test of the focus of the church in Jerusalem. It was a real problem, because the widows needed food or they would die! This was a potentially life or death situation. So what did the Apostles do? Did they drop everything to feed the widows? No, they didn’t. They kept their focus. Check it out:
Acts 6:2 So the Twelve called a meeting of all the believers. They said, “We apostles should spend our time teaching the word of God, not running a food program. 3 And so, brothers, select seven men who are well respected and are full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will give them this responsibility. 4 Then we apostles can spend our time in prayer and teaching the word.”
They said, “We need to focus. We need to teach the Word. We need to pray.” This is the first and essential part of focus: deciding what few things you will do.
I just got done reading a great little e-book by CJ Mahaney called “Biblical Productivity” that was very convicting on this front. Here’s a bit:
“When considering our schedules, we have endless options But there are a few clear priorities and projects, derived from my God-assigned roles, that should occupy the majority of my time during a given week. And there are a thousand tasks of secondary importance that tempt us to devote a disproportionate amount of time to completing an endless to-do list.”
I highly recommend you download and read Mahaney’s short book. It will help you think about how to focus yourself on the things you should be doing in your life.
But you can’t stop here. You need to take the next (sometimes more painful) step. You have to decide what you are not going to do.
“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done.” – Steve Jobs
It’s hard to have focus when you are in a growing church / organization / business. The temptation is to do a lot of things kinda sorta well instead of doing a few things very well. To be successful you have to stop doing some things and you have to never start doing some other things. And it’s important to realize the things you have to “not do” or “stop doing” are good things. They aren’t bad things, they’re just not the best things.
It was not bad for the Apostles to run a food program. It just was not the best thing for them to be doing. Once they had their focus figured out (Prayer and Teaching), they needed to take the next step to say “no” to other stuff.
Tomorrow, we’ll continue by talking about empowerment.
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