Being back in vocational ministry after taking a halftime of sorts – I want to play the second half much smarter than I did the first. Foundational to that is playing to my strengths and allowing God to use them in whatever way He sees fit to advance His Kingdom. While I can do a lot of different things, what motivates me and keeps me moving forward really boils down to four areas.
1. I am sold out to prayer-based ministry. In the busyness of church world, prayer (authentic intimacy with Creator God) has been pushed aside in favor of programming. For the past 20 years, I have been evolving into a man convinced of His own inabilities and the promise of God that “I can do all things through Christ….” I have by trial and error, learned how to build an effective, ongoing, and sustainable infrastructure of prayer that becomes the engine that drives the ministry. If you would like to talk about how to do that in your church or organization, my time is yours.
2. Having experienced real brokenness after living a charmed life, I have become aware that most churches and ministries do not have an advance plan to restore the fallen. This is not just true for church leaders – most churches have no plan in place to reclaim that guy who used to be on the board or in the choir who has an affair or that woman who comes clean about her embezzlement. The vast majority of those people leave the church without any resources, help or encouragement to find help. I have learned the hard way how important it is that churches develop an advance plan of team-based restorative ministry. I can help with resources, networking, documentation, and experience. I know from experience what works and what doesn’t. Talk to me before you need it on this one. I promise you it will be easier that way. Jesus came to heal and restore. It should be in the DNA of every local church.
3. My greatest joy is to see the Kingdom of God advanced through the collaborative effort of His people. I have spent most of my active ministry years building networks and identifying the resources and gifts of various Christian communities and drawing them together to accomplish far more together than they ever could alone. I was amazed early on to realize that when you work together to advance the Kingdom, God grows you individually.
4. I believe leadership and influence are the most important tools in your arsenal. The lack of leadership in crucial ministry areas is a result of living in the urgent instead of the important. For 21 years, I was able to staff growing volunteer ministries without a great deal of stress because I had a workable plan to cultivate future leaders and to equip and encourage current leaders. There is much talk and much great teaching on leadership these days but little practical coaching on building leadership development and capacity building into your day-to-day schedule.
PeteTackett.com 