What’s Your Focus?

“Focus On Affecting What You Can Affect, And You Will Have The Most Effect” –Matthew Kelly

Why is focus so important?” Focus is so important because it is the gateway to all thinking: perception, memory, learning, reasoning, problem solving, and decision making. Thom Rainer in Autopsy of a Deceased church found that focus was life or death.  Charles Okeibunor of IRMP Consulting reminds, “Without good focus, all aspects of your ability to think will suffer… Here’s a simple reality: “If you can’t focus effectively, you can’t think (and work and lead) effectively. Energy flows where the attention goes.”  When you focus on something, it expands.

“Where focus goes, energy flows. And where energy flows, whatever you’re focusing on grows.” In other words, our lives are controlled by what we focus on. (Tony Robbins, some say he’s America’s top life and business strategist.)

Focal Points

POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE
One of the things my preacher Dad gave me to remember as I made my way to my first pastorate, a church of 49, “Accentuate the positive; eliminate the negative” —always focus on the positive.  I must admit how difficult it was when the secretary of the board said as we unloaded our belongings, “Pastor we’re looking up to see bottom!” The Losada Ratio.  The ratio of positive feedback to negative feedback in a system. In any church, family or marriage, there needs to be 2.9 positive feedbacks for every negative feedback. Dish out 3 compliments for every complaint. Catch people doing things right. Stay focused on the positive. “The NEGATIVES in life may attract our attention and open our eyes to the need for change, but only by being POSITIVE and by helping to create and offer a better way can we positively change our world.” Helping others will help you.

POSSIBILITIES OR PROBLEMS

“WHEN YOU FOCUS ON PROBLEMS, YOU WILL HAVE MORE PROBLEMS. WHEN YOU FOCUS ON POSSIBILITIES, YOU WILL HAVE MORE OPPORTUNITIES.”

Start looking for possibilities in your life and you will open new doors to new opportunities.” Become a possibilist.  “You cannot predict the future, but you can create it”—Peter Drucker. Most people could use possibility therapy. When you’re looking up to see bottom, you must resist negativism with all your might. You cannot feed your people a steady diet of negativism-particularly if you find yourself in a discouraging financial situation. Negativism is always counterproductive.
One way we do it without realizing it with posting of the weekly financial report, especially if you never seem to be in the plus column!  In my last pastorate I came upon two  of my men standing in front of the attendance board. The church had suffered catastrophic losses prior to my arrival.  Out loud they were saying things like “Can you believe this?”  Focusing on how far the church had fallen since my predecessor had arrived.  I took it down the next week. Why? Because I did not want them focusing on the negative.

FUTURE OR THE PAST

The most pervasive and common thread of our autopsies was that the deceased churches lived for a long time with the past as hero. They held on more tightly with each progressive year. They often clung to things of the past with desperation and fear. And when any internal or external force tried to change the past, they responded with anger and resolution: “We will die before we change.” And they did. [Rainer, Thom S.. Autopsy of a Deceased Church (p. 18).  They were fighting for the past. The good old days. The way it used to be as the way  they want it today.
Yes, we respect the past. At times we revere the past. But we can’t live in the past  (p. 21).

FAITH OR FINANCES

One of the hardest places to trust God is with your finances. Do you trust God with your finances? I’m learning to trust God for finances. Instead of asking how much will it cost, ask first what does God want us to do? When He tells you…just do it!
Trust God for finances. We spent an entire year painstakingly producing a concise Mission Statement. It was really profound: Reaching people with the life-changing Gospel of Jesus Christ. What we really focused on was Evangelism as our No. 1 priority.  I can’t remember how we heard about Dr. Sandy Ardrey, who had just retired from superintendency of the Canada Pacific District, but he accepted our invitation to be Associate Minister of Evangelism.  It was the middle of the budget year and we had not planned for an extra salary, housing and benefits.  I cannot explain how God did it…If I could, then maybe God didn’t do it! But we refused to ask what will it cost, asking instead, “What does God want us to do.” When we add faith to the equation of our finances, we just might discover that we have more left over than what we started with!

I love what Mark Batterson writes. “Don’t live your life in such a way that the best you can do is the best you can do!” Take your needs to God and you will quickly learn that the best we can do is the best God can do. If we keep God out of the equation of our finances or anything else, the best we can do is the best we can do!
Maxwell says, “Don’t let money stop you.  Don’t just sit there saying, “If we just had the money, our problem would be solved.”

OUTWARD OR INWARD 

An inward focus is deadly! “More than any one item, these deceased churches focused on their own needs instead of others,” Rainer found. “They looked inwardly instead of outwardly. Their highest priorities were the way they’ve always done it, and that which made them the most comfortable (p. 22). They focused on themselves. They lost their connection with the community. And in the process of decline the hopes and dreams of those who remained.

STRENGTHS OR WEAKNESSES

One more: are you  focused on your strengths or weaknesses? I’m told that “Good leaders focus on people’s strengths and help them develop those strengths. They don’t focus on their weaknesses.” The reader is referred to another post on my adaptation of Kennon L. Callahan’s  “12 Possibilities for Creating a Strong, Healthy Church” that he shared at a Leadership Development Conference in Salt Lake City.
The big idea was to Capitalize on your strengths and Compensate for your weaknesses in two of the most important of church health and vitality: Relational and Practical. It is designed to be used as a tool for your church leaders.

What you focus on is so important. Catch people doing things right. Stay focused on the positive. Matthew Kelly, “Focus on affecting what you can affect, and you will have the most effect. It starts with you.