Blocks Don't Stack Themselves: There's no such thing as automated leadership

     You know, God has created the universe in such a way that things go from order to disorder—from order to chaos. It literally takes effort to build a ministry, like it takes effort to build anything.

     It takes energy to take blocks and stack them on top of one another. It doesn’t magically happen on its own. Blocks are far more likely to fall over than they are to somehow magically stack themselves. Ministry takes work and ministry takes effort.

     If you are walking into a new ministry situation or you are finding yourself in a new season of ministry or if you are looking to make your life easier in your personal ministry context, don’t think for a moment that it is going to happen on its own.

     Blocks don’t stack themselves. If you want to reap the benefits of an orderly, systematic, well-oiled and well-defined ministry, it’s going to take work. No one is going to do it for you.

     I have often seen ministry leaders who have looked in from afar to what took me and my team a decade of diligent labor to create and they have been frustrated, scoffed, and even gotten angry. My response is that blocks don’t stack themselves. It took an immense amount of energy and intentionality to get things to where they are right now. It doesn’t happen on its own. You have to start someplace.

Foundational Blocks

     My encouragement to you is to start with a healthy foundation of first things first. Begin with ministry processes and systems that you can set up that are very, very large foundational blocks that other blocks can easily stack upon them and stay.

     Blocks don’t stack themselves, but once I get a block stacked, I want it to remain and not be prone to fall over. Sloppiness in ministry is going to lead to chaos and disorder that you are only going to have to clean up. I want to spend more time and more energy creating a system that is going to pay future dividends and is going to stay in place long after I’m gone.

Long-Term Goal

     That’s the goal. A great leader creates processes and pathways that others can follow long after they are no longer involved in that area of ministry. Wouldn't that be a blessing to see fruit being bore by systems and processes that you have created years down the road?

     Blocks do not stack themselves. It’s not going to happen on its own. You have to give constant attention and constant care to the details. No matter the system you build, it’s going to need human involvement at some level. Even though you may have applied layers of automation and layers of systemic health through building processes and pathways for ministry to happen on its own, you have to stay involved and stay intentional.

Stacking and Staying Stacked

     Blocks don’t stack themselves and they certainly don’t stay stacked by themselves. Get in there, put one block on top of another, and understand that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Blocks do not stack themselves, building a ministry takes work.

This article was extracted from Issue 3 (Fall 2020) of the AVAIL Journal. Claim your free annual subscription here.

This article was written by Josh Denhart

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Josh Denhart is a children's ministry curriculum writer and children's ministry performer. Josh is a seasoned educator with BA in Chemistry Education, a MA in Effective Instruction, and earned National Board Certification in Young Adult and Adolescent Science. As a former High School chemistry teacher, Josh melded his love for Science and Christ, creating “The Amazing Chemistry Show”, a traveling gospel-centered stage show with fire, explosions and foam. Carrying this Ministry of Chemistry even further, Josh created “Science VBS”, an internationally celebrated Vacation Bible School curriculum.