What Are You Horrible At Doing?

One thing that I’m horrible at doing is hanging shelves.  There’s the rule of thumb measure twice cut once…when it comes to hanging shelves I measure a thousand times and end up drilling a thousand more.  It’s just something I don’t seem to get even though I work hard it.
A week ago I told you all about my $3200 mistake and while I made a series of boneheaded decisions to make that mistake one thing I’ve realized is that I’m just not the best at planning events or trips.  Why?  Not sure, but because of lack of confidence and knowledge I find myself time in and time again in over my head.  With that said our ministry still plans trips and events but instead of taking control I know…
Delegate.  But delegating is an art, it’s more than asking people to help you out.  You have to know what to delegate to who.  So how do you figure that out?

• Keep What Your Good At Not What You Like:  You might like planning the game for your ministry nights, I use to like it and I was pretty good at it; however, I was better at speaking.  Unfortunately, those two systems competed with each other and because I was doing both and not one they both suffered. Sometimes we have to give up what we like so that the things that we do well are even better.  Some of these activities might be delegated, others should be cut.
• Discover Your Ministers Hidden Gifts:  The way to discover a minister’s hidden gift shouldn’t be random, but it’s not the easiest.  I mean you can ask on an application, “What unusual gift and talents do you possess?” but in reality the best way to figure this out is by getting to know them one on one.  If you have a lot of ministers, encourage your point people to get to know their team on a one on one basis.  When you take the time to discover these talents you’ll discover people who know how to coordinate enough food for your week long work camp or how to save money on transportation for your mission trip. 
• Know That Delegating Takes Learning: You might not find the perfect fund raiser in your ministers, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t delegate.  But the risk with passing off a responsibility is knowing that that minister may fail.  But that’s okay you don’t take the risk, you’ll never know or even worse, you’ll never grow.  Plus who says that the paid staff are the only ones who can make mistakes?  If you can confidently pass off a responsibility to a team member and then lovingly pick them up if they drop the ball that’s awesome.  But if they don’t fail…even better you can then celebrate their feat.

We might have a calling from God to be leaders but it doesn’t mean we are perfect.  Knowing your limits and surrounding yourself with a strong team are keys to successful ministry.  But probably the most important part of excellence is the willingness to learn from our risks and failures.  It’s a little hard to make this adjustment, I know it’s taken me some healing and humility, but in the end it was worth it.
Where are you best in ministry and how did you make the adjustments?