Leadership Tools 8- Philosophy
Everything we do for some reason. The way I raise my kids has some philosophical reason behind it. Perhaps my parents raised me this way, or perhaps I read a book on it, or I saw it in action and wanted to replicate it, or I thought this was something that would benefit my kids. My reasoning for doing things will be totally different than yours. We may do things different because we philosophically disagree on how to raise children but to everything there is a reason. I'm not going to keep discipling my children the same way you do if it doesn't work even if the way you do it works perfectly for you.
The same is true of ministry. Each group and context is uniquely different. I've worked a variety of churches and each time I have to rethink how I do ministry within that context. What I may or may not have done in the last church can not be directly applied to my new context. I tried that a few times and it blew up in my face. I remember one student saying, "Alex we are not _________ (previous church) and if you keep treating us like _____ then I'm done." What I learned from that is to develop a general philosophy for ministry but that has to be adapted to each new situation even if the two situations look very similar. No two snowflakes are alike and no two ministries are the same, and oh man no two kids are the same (oh man my kids are as different as night and day.... Hello Mr. Hyper and Mrs. Crafty).
In General, I know that kids/students want to be loved, to know they are cared for, and to know their voice is important. I know that leaders need to feel empowered, encouraged, and feel like what they do matters. Yup we could add other values to both students and leaders, but you get the general idea. I also know that in ministry, as leaders, we need to connect individuals to God, to each other, and to the outside world in some capacity. There has to a be a balance between fun and seriousness or else you end up with one of two things.... A. Mind numbing bored or B. Superficial Hyper Hangout. Over the course of 14 years I have created a basic philosophy for ministry but like I said how I live that out looks radically different in each context.
My encouragement to you is to think about what values or characteristics are essential and transferable to any ministry you go to and what values or characteristics are specific to the context your in? Below is my broader philosophy which may look different than yours, that's a good thing just like our philosophies on parenting are different.
Hope your day overflows with joy and may this be the start of the conversation.
WORD- Philosophy
PDF- Philosophy
