the Monday Morning Debrief: Dealing with Underperformance

At the beginning of the College Football season, the Michigan Wolverines were expected to compete with Ohio State and the rest of the Big Ten’s best football teams for the Big Ten Championship.  However, with only 1 week left in the season before the Bowl games, Michigan is sitting at 7-4 and just 3-4 in Big Ten play.  That record puts them 7th out of 12 teams in the Big Ten.  Obviously, this is not how Michigan saw their year playing out.  It has been a disappointing and underperforming year.

So what does this have to do with ministry?

Sometimes we have underperforming years in ministry.  Sometimes, despite our best efforts, things just don’t go so well.  It could have happened for a variety of reasons but one thing that is clear, the year is not going as well as you thought it was going to go.

Honestly, when I have had some off years, I’ve done a few things that were no so good.  One of those was to think of quick fixes that need to happen so we can get the ship headed in the right direction.  The only problem with this is that sometime I act too quickly in making changes and I tried to make big changes without seeking the right advise from others.  That has led a lot more confusion and chaos amongst leaders and the students.  Believe me, trying to change regular activities without fully thinking it through and process the real root problems is never a good thing.

So what can you do when you encounter rough years?

1. Seek wise counsel.  It is said that President Kennedy had between 900 and 1,600 advisors.  That’s a lot of advisors!  You don’t need that many, but to have some trusted people that you can bounce ideas off of and process things with is always a good thing.  The more input you can get from the right people, the better your decisions will be as you seek to make changes.
2. Keep seeking students who can be leaders and invest in them.  Times in my ministry career where I have had off season, I have lacked good student and volunteer leadership.  When that happens, I realize I have to spend more time with them, giving them vision and ownership of the program.  Sometimes when bad years happen, oftentimes it is because I have young students who don’t have/get the vision of the program yet.  By spending time with them, investing in them and sharing the vision with them, they will hopefully “get it” and really become the leaders the program needs.
3. Keep evaluating.  As you seek wise counsel from leaders and students, it’s important to keep evaluating what you are doing and make improvements.

Unfortunately, the problem is that sometimes, no matter what you do, you are going to have off years.  I have found that the biggest thing you can do is continue to learn from these experiences and grow as a leader and ministry team.  If you rush to make changes and confuse people you are only going to worsen your already “bad year”.  However, if you are able to make the proper adjustments, you can begin to put the pieces together to where the long term health of your program will be strong.

Thoughts? Experiences?  Post a comment so that we can all benefit.