choices Archives - Passion for Planting https://church-planting.net/tag/choices/ Keeping church planters focused on people. Fri, 23 Apr 2021 21:19:52 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://church-planting.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/cropped-P4P-Favicon-32x32.jpg choices Archives - Passion for Planting https://church-planting.net/tag/choices/ 32 32 4 Benefits of Making Tough Decisions https://church-planting.net/4-benefits-of-making-tough-decisions/ Wed, 28 Apr 2021 09:15:00 +0000 https://www.couragetolead.com/courage-to-lead-blog/benefits-of-making-tough-decisions?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Blog-Couragetoleadcom+%28Blog+-+COURAGETOLEAD.COM%29

By Shawn Lovejoy: Almost every family has at some point been paralyzed by a decision as simple as which restaurant to eat at? Ever been there? At some point, even the most trivial decision can slow us up, yet the impact is often minimal. However, as leaders, there are times […]

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By Shawn Lovejoy: Almost every family has at some point been paralyzed by a decision as simple as which restaurant to eat at?

Ever been there?

At some point, even the most trivial decision can slow us up, yet the impact is often minimal.

However, as leaders, there are times when we face major decisions that actually carry weight in our lives and in the lives of others.

Perhaps you are facing that type of decision right now…

When should I hire more staff?

Do I allow negativity to continue on my leadership team?

Should I fire an underperforming team member?

How do I process my own feelings of inadequacy as the leader?

Questions like this are real. Perhaps one or more are real for you. Whatever decision you are facing, I want to challenge you to engage in the process of making it.

Here are 4 reasons you need to make that difficult call.

Decisions impact people.

I have never been faced with a tough call that did not impact people.  Snap decisions or dragging one out for too long can hurt people. Decisions I have made have caused me to eliminate someone’s job, radically reduce an entire team’s spending expectations, decline someone their dream promotion, rethink a season’s worth of work for a department, and sadly dismiss people from my team. No matter how “right” the decision I made was, it’s confirms that you’re human if it doesn’t feel great when people are negatively impacted. While you need to lead with a strong mind, you also never need to lose tenderness in your heart for people.  Care for people in what you decide, how you communicate, and the process you use to carry out your decision.

Progress is made. 

Indecision paralyzes progress.  Often when leaders are staring down the barrel of a tough call, they freeze.  For the leader time stands still, for everything else in the organization it continues to move.  We may not realize that when the leader is arrested by the enormity of a decision, everyone else feels like they are too.  Making the call, even an unpopular one, frees everyone up to move forward.  Progress can occur once we decide.  Making the decision creates momentum.

Growth can occur. 

Few things grow your leadership capacity more than navigating a hard decision.  Difficult calls stretch you in a myriad of ways.  You learn how to deal with the reactions of people, manage your own emotions and how to communicate change.  Every major decision I have faced left me stronger on the other side of it.  When I interview for potential staff roles now I like to ask candidates, “Tell me about the last decision you made that isolated you as the least popular person on your team.”  If they do not have a good example, I know they have a lot of room to grow.

In fact, I recorded a podcast episode highlighting the reasons why you should take your next leap of faith. That decision you’re putting off may be your barrier of growth in this season.

You gain credibility. 

People marvel at leaders with talent, are infatuated by leaders with charisma, but they respect leaders with guts.  Making a decision, even if it is unpopular, sets you up as someone to be respected.  I’ve coached hundreds of leaders over the years, some good at making difficult decisions, others not.  My counsel to every leader facing a big decision is that their team does not have to agree with them on every call, but their team will struggle to follow a leader too insecure to decide.  A leader who can maintain emotional stability, see the bigger picture, gain good insight and make a tough decision in a reasonable time is the one other great leaders want to follow!  Work hard to gain and keep credibility.  Having the strength to decide accelerates this process for you.

The next time you are facing a difficult choice remember that you are not alone.  Involve others in your process, gain wisdom, take adequate time to weigh the options, talk to a Coach and then make the decision.  It will require some guts to do so, but once you do you are on the path to enhancing your organization.  Happy decision making!

— COMING SOON: THE COURAGETOLEAD PODCAST with Shawn Lovejoy SEASON 2 —

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Don’t miss the upcoming season of the podcast that will be filled with practical coaching from Shawn as well as interviews with season leaders like Bill High from Hobby Lobby, Derwin Gray from Transformation Church, and Elizabeth Dixon from Chick-fil-A!

Dropping on May 18th!

Subscribe today!

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Source: 4 Benefits of Making Tough Decisions

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]]> 4 Attitudes You Can Choose Today https://church-planting.net/4-attitudes-you-can-choose-today/ Fri, 14 Feb 2020 10:00:22 +0000 https://brandonacox.com/4-attitudes-choose-today/ www.brandonacox.com

4 Attitudes You Can Choose Today .et_post_meta_wrapper by Brandon Cox: Sometimes God takes me back to kindergarten, spiritually speaking. I spend time reading theological treatises, but I sometimes forget the most basic and simple of truths. Here’s one of those basic truths I sometimes struggle with: We choose our attitudes. […]

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4 Attitudes You Can Choose Today

4 Attitudes You Can Choose Today

by Brandon Cox: Sometimes God takes me back to kindergarten, spiritually speaking. I spend time reading theological treatises, but I sometimes forget the most basic and simple of truths. Here’s one of those basic truths I sometimes struggle with: We choose our attitudes.

We don’t choose our circumstances. We don’t choose the weather, the direction of the economy, what people around us will do, or the direction of world events. If we could choose our circumstances, we would avoid discomfort every time, and in doing so, we would miss out on some amazing opportunities for growth. So we don’t get to choose our situation, but we do get to choose our attitudes.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

~ Philippians 4:8 NIV

In other words, focus your thinking on better alternatives. Here are at least four attitudes we get to choose:

I Can Choose Confidence In Spite of My Circumstances

My situation might stink, but God always alive, awake, actively working, and attentive to my situation. He saw it coming. He’s fully prepared. He wants to grow me through it and He’s on my side. Those are little truths to throw in the face of the enemy when he plants seeds of doubt. If God is for us (and we know He is) then who or what can possibly be against us?

I Can Choose to Be Positive In Spite of Criticism

Anyone who has ever had any influence on their surrounding culture has endured criticism. And often that criticism comes from the circles of people from whom we would least expect it. But criticism doesn’t have to defeat us. We should draw out of criticism anything that might be true and use it to our advantage. Everything else, we should throw at the feet of Jesus and turn our desire to be defensive over to Him (this is one of my biggest struggles). And we should be tenacious and stubborn enough to keep pressing toward God’s goal for us regardless of what others might say.

I Can Be Hopeful When Nothing Seems Certain

Some of the toughest times we go through aren’t necessarily times of deep loss, but rather are times of waiting, times of uncertainty and unrest. When our presumed reality seems to be threatened and the positive things we were counting on seem to fall through, we can still be hopeful. God’s goal for us doesn’t change. He still intends to shape us into the image of Christ. He’s still going to return in absolute victory someday. He’s still causing us to be more than conquerors through Christ.

I Can Choose to Be Content with Christ Alone

Of the four choices I’m mentioning, this one is by far the toughest. In fact, it really takes a lifetime for us to get this one down. Being content with Christ alone is a difficult attitude to gauge in our western culture because we have so much more than Jesus. I have a family, a home, two cars, food on the table, cable television, air conditioning, and gadgets galore. Will I ever know if I would truly be content with Christ alone? I’m not sure, but what I can do is walk in this attitude on a daily basis when deals fall through, when people let me down, when losses come. I can practice the discipline of saying “Jesus, You are enough. If all I have is You, I’m okay.” Contentment boils down to accepting with gratitude whatever God has in mind for us, surrendering our own idea of what is necessary in exchange for His idea of it.

These are tough. Adopting healthy attitudes is a daily discipline that requires our enjoying time with God in prayer, yielding to others, and cultivating thoughts of gratitude for God’s grace. Regardless of the size of the challenge, I know that all of these attitudes are possible because they are all commanded and exemplified in Scripture.

So choose wisely.

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Source: 4 Attitudes You Can Choose Today

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