Photo by Joshua Earle. Use via CCo. https://unsplash.com/joshuaearle
I was talking with a coaching client this past week. He told me about a conversation he had with someone on his team about the pros and cons of empowering students to increase their commitment.
The team member’s response was essentially, “Whoa, that sounds too risky!”
It is risky. If we actually delegate meaningful roles and responsibilities to others–especially the things we can do BETTER than them–it’s risky.
They might mess it up. It might bomb–or worse, just fall flat. There’s no two ways around it.
But what my client and I talked about was this: All of ministry is risky!
Sometimes we focus on the risks of trying something and it not going well (particularly when it’s out of our control).
And we don’t adequately assess the risk of NOT trying something, of NOT delegating/empowering/training someone else to do the work. That’s the work of people in vocational ministry by the way, to not be the Do-ers, so much as the equippers and multipliers.
What I advised my client to say to his risk-averse naysayer was this: The next time someone says, “Whoa, that’s too risky!” respond by saying “Ministry is always risky. We can’t avoid it, nor should we. The real question is, Are we taking the right risks?”
The risks of continuing to do it ourselves, and not entrusting it to others, is far greater than the risks of handing off our work to others.
It’s not really ours, anyway. It’s God’s, and he’s entrusted it to us to be passed off to others.
So are you taking the RIGHT risks? Who and what does that look like?