I was reminded this week what a well articulated vision of ministry can do.
This week, my team met with two key leaders around young adult ministry. We spent no more than 30 minutes with each of them. The goal: to get them on board and help us create a proposal and plan around a specific aspect of our ministry to young adults. So we laid it out there.
Boom! This is our vision! We want to do these four things between now and summer for young adults. This is why we think it will work. This is why it is exciting. We want to create a plan. We are asking you to help because you’re the first person that came to mind. It was a no-brainer to ask you. This is what we want you to do…by October 31. You in?
The answer was not just a yes, but an enthusiastic yes! One of them even said that they would have their proposal to us much sooner than October 31. I’m not going to argue with that.
After some reflection, here are some of the reasons why I think what we did worked:
- Vision: we outlined the big picture of what we wanted to do. We showed them how everything connected and why now was the time to move forward. We shared with them why we thought doing these four specific events would help build the momentum of young adult ministry in a short time. And the enthusiasm showed on our faces as we were talking.
- Action Steps: we named what the next few steps were. Essentially for us, it was to create a detailed ministry plan, pitch it to our supervisor, look for money to help fund these initiatives, and create a marketing campaign around this plan. The next steps were clear.
- Affirmation: we let the people we met with know why we asked them to help. We spent a minute or two naming their gifts and strengths and affirming them. It was genuine. We weren’t just making things up.
- The Ask: we named specifically what we wanted them to do and gave them a deadline.
It worked! Now to be honest, we didn’t go in to these meetings with this plan. This happened by accident for us. But now we know how to do it on purpose next time.
