A Successful Church

Would you consider the following items as measures of success in your local church, or concerns?

1. The number of cigarette butts in the church parking lot.
2. The number of adoptions people in the church have made from local foster care.
3. The number of pictures on the church wall of unwed mothers. holding their newborn babies in their arms for the first time.
4. The number of classes for special needs children and adults.
5. The number of former convicted felons serving in the church.
6. The number of phone calls from community leaders asking the church’s advice.
7. The number of meetings that take place somewhere besides the church building.
8. The number of organizations using the church building.
9. The number of days the pastor doesn’t spend time in the church office but in the community.
10. The number of emergency finance meetings that take place to reroute money to community ministry.
11. The amount of dollars saved by the local schools because the church has painted the walls.
12. The number of people serving in the community during the church’s normal worship hours.
13. The number of non-religious-school professors worshiping with you.
14. The number of people wearing good, free clothes that used to belong to members of the church.
15. The number of times the church band has played family-friendly music in the local coffee shop.
16. The number of people who have gotten better because of free health clinic you operate.
17. The number of people in new jobs thanks to the free job training center you opened.
18. The number of micro-loans given by members in your church.
19. The number of churches your church planted in a 10 mile radius of your own church.

How do you measure success? Click "comments" below.

[From W. David Phillips]

In Pursuit of Excellence

Psychologist and executive coach Graham Jones believes that the real key to excellence is mental toughness. In the current Harvard Business Review he writes that the most successful keaders do five things to get better and stay that way.

1. Learn to Love the Pressure. To do that you must dedicate yourself to constant self-improvement. That is made a lot easier if you learn to compete with yourself and block out the drama of those around you. It’s a choice. “Greg Searle, who won an Olympic gold medal in rowing, is often asked whether success was worth the price. He always gives the same reply: ‘I never made any sacrifices; I made choices.’”
2. Fixate on the Long Term. Map out short-term goals in every area that affects your performance to make sure you meet your long-term goal. Long term success is paved with small achievements.
3. Iron Sharpens Iron. Spend time with people who will push you the hardest. “Smart companies consciously create situations in which their elite performers push one another to levels they would never reach if they were working with less-accomplished colleagues.”
4. Reinvent Yourself. Once you become the benchmark, you need to keep reinventing yourself. To do this you need to develop an insatiable appetite for feedback; you need to be “hungry for advice on how to develop and progress. One word of caution, however: While it’s good to feel challenged, you need to make sure that any feedback you get is constructive. If criticism doesn’t seem helpful at first, probe to see if you can get useful insights about what’s behind the negative feedback. Get more specifics. You should be able to see concrete improvements in your performance after getting detailed coaching advice.”
5. Celebrate the Victories. Think of it as constructive celebration. Otherwise it can lead to complacency. “Celebration is more than an emotional release. Done effectively, it involves a deep level of analysis and enhanced awareness. The very best performers do not move on before they have scrutinized and understood thoroughly the factors underpinning their success.”

In the end, the keyword is resilience. Jones concludes, “Most of those participating in the Olympics this summer will walk away from the games without grabbing a single medal. Those with real mettle will get back into training again. That’s what truly separates elite performers from ordinary high achievers. It takes supreme, almost unimaginable grit and courage to get back into the ring and fight to the bitter end. That’s what the Olympic athlete does. If you want to be an elite performer in business, that’s what you need to do, too.”

Today's Quote

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas Edison, Inventor