Goals: Do you have any?

It’s that time of year when we are all thinking about our New Year’s resolutions (unless you don’t believe in that sort of thing), but maybe instead of resolutions (which tend to lose steam), we should think about establishing goals (which are sustainable).

Why set goals for yourself and your church?

1. Setting Goals is Biblical (Philippians 3:13-14). Here Paul is talking specifically about Spiritual maturity. Elsewhere the Apostle Paul said, “Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air” (1 Corinthians 9:26 NIV). There was intention and focus in his journey.

2. Goals are Measurable Objectives. The saying goes, “Aim at nothing and you can hit it every time.” How do you know how effective you and your church have been if there is nothing tangible and spoken that you are reaching toward?

3. Goals are First Steps to Action. One of the reasons that I made significant progress toward an advanced degree this year (2011) is because I set goals and established timelines. I wrote down a schedule and made myself accountable to follow through.

4. Goals help Create Accountability. Goals (particularly in the church body) should be regularly communicated so they are remembered and energy is committed to them (Deuteronomy 6:8-9).

5. Goals help Communicate Vision. Where are we headed? What is supposed to be taking place on our God-given journey? I know that sometimes life is serendipitous, but it should not ALWAYS be that way.

6. Goals help Communicate Values. They help us to understand what is truly worth the investment of our lives. They help answer the question, “To what and whom would God have me give myself?”

7. Goals Challenge our Complacency. It is the bane of our lives and our churches that we are so satisfied and willing to embrace the status quo. Apathy is like cancer, slowly killing our churches and our individual effectiveness for God in the world (Ephesians 5:14).

8. “OK, I am convinced that I should set goals. What now?”
(a) Seek the Lord (Jeremiah 29:13). Obviously you don’t want to live a self-directed life; that is the essence of sin.
(b) Write them down. There won’t be any follow-through if your goal is not recorded.
(c) Refer to your goals frequently; either in your own reflection or corporately if they are church goals.
(d) If the goals are corporate, work them out (discover them) in a group.
(e) Be realistic, but don’t short-sell God. “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen” (Ephesians 3:20-21).
(f) Do the hard things that it will take to make these God-given dreams happen. “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”