The 3 most important questions you can answer for your church this week.

I’m taking a short break from our epic blog series to address something that I have been thinking about a lot these days. There are few things that are more critical to leadership than organizational clarity. If you aren’t clear about who you are, what you do, and why you matter, you have no hope of success. No matter if you are a church, a school, a non-profit, or a for-profit company, organizational clarity has to be a top priority.

This is going to be a short blog today for two reasons. I’m traveling this week and short on time, but also because I want you to have some space to actually think through what I wrote and answer some questions for your church or whatever you lead.

First, what do you mean by organizational clarity?

1. You have to know who you are. This means that the values, purpose, and mission of the organization are crystal clear. Why do you exist as an organization? This may seem simple but you’d be surprised at how many churches I consult with that couldn’t answer this question with any specificity. 

2. You have to know what you do. These two things seem similar but they are different in important ways. This question is trying to get after the primary activity of the organization. We make so many decisions about what to do, what programs to offer, and what ministries to start, that if we don’t understand what our core activity is, we will say yes to too many things and end up unfocused and our resources will be stretched thin. 

3. The last question is meant to help you see what your unique contribution to your mission might be. No matter your industry, you are not the only one doing what you do. There are thousands of companies, non-profits, and churches around you with very similar purpose, so why would someone go to your church or buy your product? What is your unique contribution to the world? The answers to the first two questions are going to be similar across industries, but this one should be as unique as possible to your organization.

1. Take some time this week to answer these questions for whatever organization you lead. Next week we’ll talk about how to communicate these answers in a way that actually shapes the people you lead and keeps your whole organization moving in the same direction.