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,” argues Thom Rainer in Autopsy of a Deceased Church, “because it is the gateway to all thinking: perception, memory, learning, reasoning, problem solving, and decision making.” Focus was life or death. “Without good focus,” Charles Okeibunor of IRMP Consulting concurs, “all aspects of our 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. Scripture challenges believers to focus on things above. Tony Robbins, who some say is America’s top life and business strategist, indicates that our lives are controlled by what we focus on: “Where focus goes, energy flows. And where energy flows, whatever you’re focusing on grows.” Hence, the question, “What are you focusing on?”
Six Focal Points
1. 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, was to 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 is 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. In other words, we should dish out three compliments for every complaint. It is always best to stay focused on the positive. Like me, you have probably learned the timeless truth of Dr. Leslie Parrot, late President of Olivet Nazarene University. He said it takes ten positive board members to overcome the influence of one negative person.
“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.” (John C. Maxwell, Change Your World, 17) Helping others will help you. 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?” as they opined about the glory days of the church. They were 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.
2. 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 possiblist. “You cannot predict the future, but you can create it,” said Peter Drucker. Most people could use possibility therapy. It takes a deliberate act of the will to turn away from the problem and focus on the positive, but it is well worth the effort.
One thing that helps me in my daily regimen is to begin my Daily Quiet Time with God by finding three to five things I am thankful for before I ever ask Him for anything. Watchman Nee once said, “Despite the fact that problems are piling up and that we acknowledge with our mouth that prayer is the only way to solve them, we talk more than we pray, and we worry and resort to methods more than we pray.”
I’m learning to follow the advice of Deborah Rosenkranz. She suggested in an email personally addressed to me, “There are those times when you feel like one problem attracts the next. You wake up in the morning and your thoughts are immediately dominated by your problems! In those moments, she says, “you have two choices: (1) You follow these thoughts and thereby make everything worse. Or (2) You pray (!) and seek God’s nearness.” Not every problem goes away when we pray, but our perspective always changes.
What is that problem you are currently facing? Does it keep getting in your way? Learn the lesson of Daniel when he was thrown into the lion’s lair: the lions were there but it doesn’t mean they can hurt you! “And when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him, because he had trusted in his God.” (Daniel 6:23 NIV). Trust God to bring you through unscathed no matter the circumstances.
3. THE FUTURE OR THE PAST
The most pervasive and common thread of Rainer’s autopsies on deceased churches was that they 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 living in the past is a sure way to put a declining church on a slippery slope toward its demise.
Thomas Langford states it well: “Hope does not defer to the future; hope reshapes the understanding of the past and determines life in the present. We live transformed in and by hope.” Past help should engender present hope. It is reasonable to expect that if God has helped us in the past that we would habitually go to Him in the present with high expectation of a future helping hand. “My past is redeemed. My present makes sense. My future is secure.”
4. 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 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’m 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.”
5. OUTWARD OR INWARD
An inward focus is deadly! “More than any one item, Rainer’s deceased churches focused on their own needs instead of others.” 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.
6. 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.” Kennon Callahan taught timeless principles called “12 Possibilities for Creating a Strong, Healthy Church” 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 arenas of church life: the Relational and Practical. He designed a tool for your church leaders. Look in the directory of this website, davidfnixon.com where I have posted the document. The genius of Callahan’s plan is focus, not on 10 weaknesses you try to change all at once; rather, over the course of a year, seek to grow your greatest weakness into a strength. Rejoice in your strengths, but endeavor to grow a strength even better, again over the course of a year.
What you focus on is so important. Matthew Kelly, “Focus on affecting what you can affect, and you will have the most effect. It starts with you.” Someone said, “Life changes when you decide to change it. You need to start working on change. The more you focus in life, the better your life will be.” John C. Maxwell says, “Positive change isn’t one of those things that just happen. Changing anything—especially turning weaknesses into strengths—requires someone to be the catalyst.” I encourage you to become a well-focused catalyst for the change you seek “Anyway. Anywhere. Anyhow. Whenever. Wherever. Whatever” (Batterson).
