When I was first planting a church many years ago, I found that I was getting tired and discouraged every few weeks. I prayed the psalms, crying out to God, asking for his help, praying for perspective. I was on the lookout for unconfessed sin. I tried counting my blessings. Nothing. I wasn’t getting anywhere.
Then the thought came, “Why don’t you sit down and draw an organizational chart of the church?” My first response was one of irritation. “An org chart? Hmm…well, since God isn’t answering my prayers, I might as well do that.” I wrote my name down at the top, drew the chart, and discovered that I had 27 direct reports. That’s 27 lines going to my name with arrows. I threw my pen down on the paper and thought, “No wonder I’m tired! I don’t have a spiritual problem here. I have a Moses problem. I’m trying to do too much stuff myself.” (See Exodus 18:13–27 for more on the “Moses problem.”) My church had grown to the point that reorganization was required.
For me, that meant delegating. I had to shift from doing much of the ministry myself into an equipping role. Although the shift was challenging, it’s one of the most important ones I’ve ever made. It transformed my ministry. After I reorganized I was able to focus more on what only I could do, I was able to empower other people in their areas of giftedness, and I enjoyed the increased sense of personal health that came with having more peace and rest.
Do you want to learn how to delegate more effectively? Delegating is one of the 7 skills covered in the Leadership Skills Guide on Leading Teams. Also, there’s plenty more where this one came from. The best deal is to get the Complete Set of Leadership Skills Guides. If you used one guide per month with your leaders, you’d have three years’ worth of leadership trainings. At about $1 per guide, that’s a huge value.