Seth Godin call’s it the Dip. Others call it “knowing when to lay down your bet”. However, it shouldn’t take just a losing proposition to stop doing something that is ‘good’ in pursuit of doing something that is great.
For instance, here is an example of a church in the Seattle area that STOPPED doing a very new and successful satellite campus (over 800+ attending) because it wasn’t accomplishing their stated objectives of community, evangelism, and service.
What if projects and ministries had shorter life spans?
In meeting with a successful leader the other day, I was challenged to not always think in terms of “life long time lines”. What if projects and ministries had shorter life spans? What if we had clear, short-term, small budget, in-n-out approaches to some of our objectives? What if teams, budgets, fundraising, et-al didn’t always go on forever?
In WWII the U.S. Marines spent over a year preparing to take just one key island - Iwo Jima. It was a hotly contested conflict with thousands of lives laid at the alter of freedom, but they knew when and what victory looked like and it wasn’t about being in the marines forever or engaged in war in perpetuity.
Don’t be afraid to cancel things…
The challenge before us for the greatest gains does not always have to include “doing this forever”. Don’t be afraid to cancel things that aren’t meeting you goals or your values or your stated outcomes. Just because you started something does not mean that you should always finish.
NIce. I think it’d be interesting to see what would happen if a church “planted” in a city with the express intention of being there for 5 years, doing some Jesus training & teaching & then moving to a new city - leaving a mass of trained, excited, fresh jesus-followers to pump into already existing ministries & churches.
Just a thought.
Adam,
I love that idea. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing Ryan, some great ideas that I hope to share with my church this week!