Commitment

How then can we be a church that is welcoming and full of grace, open to the needy and creating an environment where men and woman are professing their desire to belong to Christ and be counted as part of the family of the church? The answer is simple we need more committed people. Committed leadership is at the heart of any successful enterprise. This means that those who lead need to willing to make the sacrifices that leadership demands in order to encourage others to follow. Jesus once said, “No one who puts their hand to the plough and then turns back is fit for the Kingdom of Heaven.” In other words if you are ploughing a field and you get distracted, you will dig an uneven and squinty furrow. If the key for success is to have commitment from leadership why not just work with the elders or leaders who are committed and show that commitment? It sounds simple enough, however in practice so many factor come into play. More often than not leaders can feel committed but overwhelmed by the task and then they seek to find a way out of the commitment. At the heart of this dilemma is often a lack of training and support from within the team of leaders for themselves and also a lack of understanding of the significance of the bigger picture. The truth is that we who are leaders and elders, all of us, need to be reminded of our calling and first commitment which is to serve Christ in our daily lives and among our families before we seek to lead others in the church. As Christian men and women commitment is always about remembering to fulfil that which we said we would do when we least feel like doing it. In many ways commitment is not just about wanting or wishing that something might happen. Commitment is about becoming engaged, emotionally, intellectually and practically to ensure it happens.