I liked Seth Godin’s post today about managin urgency, how moving from one fire to another can end up being your career instead of something much more meaningful. I think youth ministries get caught in this trap as well, going from parent to volunteer to student to senior pastor and back and forth all inbetween, never ever doing something truly siginificant. Chew on this clip today, I know I am:

You can have grand visions for remodeling your house or getting in shape, but if there’s a fire in the kitchen, you drop everything and put it out. What choice do you have? The problem, of course, is that most organizations are on fire, most of the time.

Add up enough urgencies and you don’t get a fire, you get a career. A career putting out fires never leads to the goal you had in mind all along.

I guess the trick is to make the long term items even more urgent than today’s emergencies. Break them into steps and give them deadlines. Measure your people on what they did today in support of where you need to be next month.

JG