I’ll never forget the time I was skiing with a friend and his dad, Norm. I loved Norm. At the time, he was over 50 and had never been skiing. After an hour or so, he decided he wanted to ride up the ski-lift with me. He would go down the rather tame, intermediate run (as opposed to the bunny slope and its rope-tow), and I was going to go down the Double-Black Diamond run and meet him at the bottom of the slope. Well, he wanted to see what a black diamond course looked like from the top, but unfortunately, he went too far over the precipice for him to turn back. I was worried for him and said I’d go down first. I stopped about half way down to see Norm, to my horror and utter disbelief, attempt a mogul on his skis. Needless to say, the poor guy wiped out, tried standing up, just to lose his balance and fall end over end. No sooner did it seem like Norm’s momentum would slow, he tried to stand just to lose his balance again and topple further down the mountain.
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It was pretty scary being stuck, able to do nothing more than watch. Thank God he wasn’t seriously injured. But guess who got stuck trudging up the mountain to retrieve the lost poles and skis? Yep, me.
On Tuesday, Josh and Kurt wrote about their FAQs regarding their ministries at Saddleback. On Wednesday, they shared their great wisdom surrounding mission work. And at first glance, these two stories have nothing to do with each other—until I realized how the Crawl, Walk, Run principle can be applied to so much.
I have always found it funny when a church such as Saddleback has a healthy, thriving ministry, other groups want to know what they are doing and how they are doing it. Never mind the fact that what is good for one church won’t necessarily be good for another. Never mind the fact that a lot of thought, work, and planning went into building Saddleback’s ministries. Never mind that it didn’t happen overnight. Never mind that they didn’t use a cookie-cutter plan to make it so.
I appreciate reading about what tried and true programs do in order for them to be successful. But all must understand that they can’t expect to adopt another’s program without discerning what is right for their particular group.
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Reflecting on the practical Crawl, Walk, Run principle, you shouldn’t expect to run with some other church’s equation for success. Instead, focus on a few things at a time. If you aren’t satisfied with your ministry, invest in a book like Mark DeVries’s Sustainable Youth Ministry. Start with a good foundation, and build your way up.
After all, you can’t expect to be ready for moguls if you aren’t even sure how to navigate the bumps. And if you try to, someone else may very well have to clean up the mess.