Ministry tips from a billionaire
Forbes magazine recently interviewed several self-made billionaires on the lessons they had learned along the way. One of them, R.J. Kirk, was asked about the biggest blunder he had ever made, and what he had learned from it. Kirk said:
I have on a couple of occasions permitted continued investment in a small company after the time that I had become convinced that the investment was unlikely to provide a return. At the time, I thought that perhaps I should give the younger members of my investment team, avid supporters of the little companies, the opportunity to “prove me wrong.” This qualifies as a blunder because (1) there is absolutely no satisfaction in being proved correct while participating in the destruction of value, (2) if my organization must produce value by proving me wrong, I probably should leave and (3) there are more than a sufficient number of good opportunities concerning which our team is in full agreement, and focusing on these investments always will be the right idea. The lessons (unfortunately, these are lessons that I have had to learn more than once) is that investment (of time, money or any resource) should never be governed by any sense of inertia.
It struck me that these principles also applied to ministry. How many ministries exist in our church that are not (or not any longer) really bearing any fruit? And yet we continue to pour the time of our people (and often other resources like money or space that could be put to better use) into them for no better reason than inertia. As a leader, offering the few people who are emotionally invested in this ministry the opportunity to prove you wrong makes no more sense than it would in the business world. And is proving you wrong really the best use of those folks’ gifts and resources?
It can be hard to terminate a ministry… unless you have more important things to do with your people, time, and money.
