The View from My Window: Focusing Our Performance on Fruitfulness

—2 Chronicles 1:10

I, like many of you, enjoy reading. I enjoy reading all kinds of books; however, lately I have found myself being drawn more and more to books that challenge some of my conventional ideas concerning “leadership.”

The book I am currently reading is “Owl Sight: Evidence-Based Discernment and the Promise of Organizational Intelligence for Ministry” by J. Russell Crabtree. Is that a mouthful or what? But, more important than the length of the title is a section I recently encountered entitled, “What Is Critical for Leaders to Do Well: The Performance Function.” What makes this section so important is not trying to challenge the usage of metrics, which I find extremely useful. But, rather how the metrics are used to determine the effectiveness of a church and/or church leader to live into the vision and fulfill the mission of the church.

According to Crabtree, a truly effective leader moves the church to address the “performance function” using the following criteria:

• Is the performance function focused on fruitfulness?

• Does the church value doing the right thing as opposed to doing things right?

• Is the church aimed at addressing the needs of people on the inside and the outside?

• Is the church viewing her effectiveness with a short-term lens (1 to 3 years)?

I wonder how much of an impact our churches would make in our neighborhoods if we placed equal energy in our administrative and performance functions. 

How much greater might our presence be if we focused on “fruitfulness” more than “maintenance”?

How much greater might our presence be if we focused on “doing the right thing” more than “doing things right”?

How much greater might our presence be if we focused on “effectiveness” more than “efficiency?”

How much greater might our presence be if we exerted the same energy addressing the needs of insiders and outsiders . . . better yet if we blurred the lines between insider and outsider?

We are bombarded with quite a bit of gloom and doom when it comes to the future of our church. I close this view with the idea that if we, laity and clergy, focus on becoming more of a “performance functioning” community sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ . . . and living like Jesus is truly our Lord and Savior . . . and loving like Jesus is found in the faces and hearts of people we know and people we don’t know . . . and learning as we follow the One who orders the steps of our lives, we might also then offer more hope than hype to a world hungering for a hope-filled, soul-sustaining, life-giving, lovingly transformational Word from the Lord!

Stepping away from my window . . .