No matter the size of the church or culture of the community there is one thing you can always count on – there will be projects or initiatives that pop up late in the game. Some of the best ideas are last minute God-prompts, and our ability to act on these prompts is tied to our ability to handle last minute pressure.
It doesn’t matter how organized you are – there will be things that happen last minute, which require action and energy.
How do you handle last minute pressure when it arrives? There is a scene from a new show on ABC called Quantico (click here) that gives a great picture of what happens under last minute pressure.
This scene helps highlight 3 types of people when dealing with last minute pressure:
- People who run from the pressure
- People who try to take all the pressure on themselves
- People who use the pressure as an opportunity for others to engage
People who run from the pressure are not really a part of this conversation. I do not mean to be unkind, just to say that this post is directed towards those who are in the room trying to figure out how to make things happen.
Then there are people who try to take all the pressure on themselves. Perhaps they are overconfident in themselves, or perhaps they are scared to ask for help. In a growing organization I picture this person being something like a football star who might have been able to carry his high school team on his back but is unable to be a one-man show in college. Taking the pressure on yourself might sometimes work…but most of the time it has the ability to break you.
The final group of people is the group I always long to be a part of. It is the people who recognize the pressure and use it as an opportunity to pull people together to do something great. Here is what we can all learn from this group: people love to rally around a cause.
Under pressure one of the best things you can do is ask for help. As soon as you find yourself feeling some last minute pressure, pick up the phone and send a text, make a call, post on social media…invite others to help solve the pressure.
The reality of last minute pressure is it has the ability to forge together individuals for a common goal.
Cory Lebovitz 