Simple. Important.

With a crackle of the speaker, you hear the words, “may I take your order.” Suddenly, your mind goes blank. Have you ever experienced a momentarily lapse in memory? You knew your spouse’s lunch order, and then amnesia strikes. Have you experienced this before? As a leader, have you had this moment when leading?

I found myself more confused than when I began. A desk covered with an empty soda can, notes, ideas, prices, financial statements, potential event dates, and crumbled up papers surrounded me. Planning one of our upcoming ministry seasons proved to be more challenging than previous seasons. After several hours of brainstorming, I had fewer ideas to bring to the team than I had when I began.

The moment I hit the end of my rope, when I was mentally exhausted, I realized I forgot a few essential questions. What were we trying to accomplish? What are we hoping will occur in the lives of our students? How do we wish to reveal God’s grace to them during this season?

Asking these questions suddenly brought everything to a standstill. The answer to these questions would be hard to find in any of the events that we were exploring. Instead, the season needed a different look. So we scrapped the events. We moved away from events and towards strategic moments within our already occurring activities. Now, we wait. We wait to see the impact of the next ministry season.

All of this brought to light a simple guiding principle that generally guides all of our decisions. When planning the future, always know your purpose. What is the end goal? For me, that question is answered through our mission statement and by asking how we are revealing God’s grace to our students. For some reason, I was experiencing a bit of leadership amnesia. It took getting to my mind’s end to remember- always know your end goal.