Hitting Singles

Most people in the sports' world have been following Barry Bonds and his quest to break Babe Ruth's home run record and move into second place in all time home runs. He has now accomplished it.

With all the fascination with home runs it has made me think about my own desire to always hit home runs. I want to hit a home run every time I preach. I want to hit a home run every time we have a staff meeting. I want to hit a home run every time that I have a meeting with someone about faith issues.

But is it necessary or even important to hit so many home runs? Most people who hit a great number of home runs in baseball also strike out a lot. I certainly don't want to do that in ministry. I make enough mistakes as it is.

In Jim Collin's book Good to Great, he writes about the flywheel. In order to get the flywheel to turn, you have to make push after push after push. You start small and you are just trying to turn the flywheel a little bit. With every push it moves a little bit more.

I consider those little pushes in the right direction - singles. There is no way you can get the flywheel turning at a high rate of speed with a single push (home run). It is in the discipline of consistent small pushes in the right direction that gets the flywheel turning.

I am becoming more and more convinced that is true in leadership as well. We don't have to worry about the home runs. It is more important that we are disciplined in consistently building positive momentum in the direction that God is leading us.

It seems we are hitting our singles in a pretty consistent pattern around here lately. I can feel the positive momentum building. I can't fully explain it, but I know it's happening. We aren't hitting any real home runs (except maybe Pastor Dave with this Family Channel series). But I don't think that is important. God is looking for us to be faithful in the small things so he can bless us in the big ones.

It's all in the discipline of hitting singles and building positive momentum. Let God hit the home runs.