the Monday Morning Debrief: Making the most out of an opportunity

Last summer, MySocialCloud.com had the opportunity of a lifetime.  Because they responded to a tweet from Richard Branson, Virgin Mobile CEO and entrepreneur, they went from an unknown company to being invested in by Branson for $1 million.  How did this happen, might you ask?

Because they saw an opportunity and responded.  The opportunity was an invitation on Twitter by Branson that whoever donates $2,000 a charity of his backing, they would have the opportunity to meet him for cocktails. So the MySocialCloud.com founders Stacey and Scott responded, donated, met Branson and in returned ended up having him invest in their company to the tune of $1 million dollars.  Now their company has been propelled in further ahead of their plan.  Not to shabby for responding to a tweet.

So how does this apply to ministry?

Simple.  Stacey and Scott saw an opportunity and jumped on it.  What opportunities are right in front of you that you need to respond to?  What is God doing right in front of you, ready for the taking, just ready for you to see it and respond?

In January, I started a youth event called “the Hangout” every Friday night where middle and high school students would come and hangout, play games and have a safe place to go on a Friday night that didn’t involve drinking and recklessness. Well, one thing that started happening was that after our nZone Grand Opening event, some lower income families from the local neighborhood started hearing about “the Hangout” and began dropping off their elementary aged children on Friday nights.  They thought “the Hangout” was for them too.

Now, having elementary aged students coming out to a middle and high school event wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but more and more of these students started coming out.  They were really loving it.  Then some of the staff from New Life and I started hearing from local teachers how these students kept on talking about it at school.  The teachers would tell us that if these children weren’t coming to “the Hangout” on Friday nights they would be stealing bikes and getting in all sorts of mischief.

So what do we do?  You can’t mix high school teens with elementary aged kids?  We should just turn these kids away until we can program and plan for something, right?

Wrong.  Through others at New Life starting to see an opportunity, we were able to formulate a plan to keep drawing these students to the nZone on Friday night AND, even better, a group of us have developed a modified VBS every M, W, F this summer specificically for these lower income children.  It has been amazing so far with over 30 children each time.

So here’s the point.  Opportunities are all around us.  The question is are we seeing them?  Are we looking for them?  Are we acting on them?

This ministry to lower income children and their families was not what I intended when I started this Friday night deal.  But God used it as a starting point for something bigger.  And, because of the blessing of many great people at New Life, we are now able to reach a new group of people, a group we never thought we were going to reach like this.  It just shows that God is great and can do so much.

So what about you?  TAKE A MINUTE right now and think through what are the opportunities that God may have rich in front of you that you need to act on now.  As Guns N Roses used to sing, “Nothing last forever in the cold November rain”.  Well, it’s July, but still, opportunities are there, possibly waiting for you to take that step and do something about it.  Will you?  Or will you just let is slip away because of this or that reason?

Share your thoughts or experience about opportunities so that we can all benefit.