Andy Stanley is a pastor, communicator, and the founder of North Point Ministries (NPM). Since its inception in 1995, North Point Ministries has grown from one campus to five in the Atlanta area and has helped plant over twenty strategic partner churches throughout the United States. Each Sunday, more than 25,000 adults attend services at one of NPM’s three campuses: North Point Community Church, Browns Bridge Community Church, and Buckhead Church.
Andy’s books include the newly released The Grace of God, as well as Communicating for a Change, Making Vision Stick, Next Generation Leader, The Principle of the Path, and How Good is Good Enough? Andy lives in Alpharetta, Georgia, with his wife, Sandra, and their three children.
- The more successful you are, the less accessible you will become.
- This isn’t a good or bad thing, it’s just a truth of leadership.
- We can get tricked into thinking that we will always be present and available to everyone.
- We won’t be able to.
- It’s an unavoidable truth that could drive us to do one of two things:
- Refuse to face this reality and burn out by trying to be accessible to everyone.
- Even though your body may be present, your mind won’t be there.
- You can only be fully present to a few people.
- When you are called to ministry, it was all about people.
- Over time, you’ll become distracted.
- Use success as an excuse to become more inaccessible than necessary.
- People will start conversations with us saying, “I know you are busy, but…”
- Don’t use that as an excuse to excuse yourself.
- This isn’t a problem just for megachurches, it’s something as simple as a church that goes from 150 to 300.
- Over time it’s easy to use our success to become even more inaccessible than we really need to be.
- Unawareness is bliss.
- The more aware you are of the needs of the people around you, the more helpless you feel.
- There are no easy solutions or quick fixes.
- Our awareness of the issues and problems around us will wear us out.
- Every single day we are bombarded with information and aware of global events… disasters, need, tragedy, etc.
- The awareness of all of this is overwhelming.
- We finally want to close our doors, shut ourselves off, etc.
- Our hearts can grow cold. We’re no longer accessible. We’re no longer present.
- We can burn out or run away.
- We all have moments where there’s too much information, too much hurt, etc.
- The Apostle Paul delved into this dilemma.
- There is a collision point of our limited time and opportunity.
- Galatians 6:9-10 – …let us not become weary in doing good, at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
- Galatians 6:2 – carry each other’s burden…
- You can’t shut it all out.
- You can’t take it all on.
- This is one of the primary tensions that we have to manage as leaders.
- This is not a problem to solve.
- This is a tension we live with every single day as leaders: limited time, limited opportunity, and a responsibility for the people God has called us to live with.
- “Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone.”
- As kids, we were always told, “if I do this for you, I’ll have to do it for everyone.”
- That way of thinking creeps into a our thinking as people in ministry.
- “If I did your ____, then I’ll have to do everyone’s _____”
- No you don’t.
- This is how you manage your limited time with growing ministerial responsibilities: you choose to do for one what you could do for everyone.
- Don’t give up.
- Don’t get so far away from the struggles that you grow cold to them.
- Don’t use the excuse that you are so busy and “so big.”
- Don’t be fair, be engaged.
- Fairness ended in the Garden of Eden.
- Fair is nothing
- Go deep rather than wide.
- Go deep with one person, not everyone.
- Give someone close access, not everyone.
- Go long -term rather than short-term.
- Don’t rob yourself of the joy of ministry: a success story.
- Walk with someone through their entire journey; don’t just give them an hour.
- The only way for you to be present is to decide to spend an extended amount of time with a few rather than fragmented time with many.
- Go time, not just money.
- Don’t just support missions trips, go on one.
- Go back to the same place next year.
- When you go time, not just money, it engages your heart.
- Be fully engaged with what God is doing in one place, in one person, in one situation.
- One person can give you hope for many.
- We can’t save everyone, but maybe we can save one.
- When you do for one, you often end up doing for more than just one.
- Don’t be fair, be engaged.
- Go long.
- Go deep.
- Maybe this is how you change the whole world.
- Even if you don’t change the world, you will change somebody else’s world.
