• Show Me Your Work!
Show Me Your Work!
Learning math was always a chore for me in school. It never really came easy for me. However, when the teacher required me to “show my work,” this added another dimension to my math skills. If somehow, I skipped a step in the process, but got the right answer by guessing, I was marked down for my process being flawed. The resolve was to get both the answer and process right.
As I have grown older, I have become more concerned about “process” in leadership rather than having the right answer. Showing Your Work allows your coach to participate and help you to work through issues and get more ownership for your change.
The Coach’s mandate to Show Your Work really allows someone else into your process. Here are fifteen areas where Showing Your Work matters.
1. Goal Worksheets
I believe writing up Goal Worksheets can alter your ministry process! Yes, the arduous painstaking task of writing your plans can help. Having to show your work improves your planning process. The goal outcome is important, for sure, but your process is just as important. The right outcome often follows a good process. Many a leader will have a good goal and maybe some passion, but no plan to accomplish it. The goal-setting process on a worksheet can create your forward movement, because it implies taking the next step. Show your work.
2. “To-Do” Lists
Here is another objective way to track or monitor you daily routine that can help you be focused and productive. The most successful way to manage your day is to prepare your “to-do” list the night before, or at the beginning of your day. However, having a good list is one thing, but keeping it open in front of you is quite another. Show me Your Work!
3. Management Notebook
Your Notebook is a place to monitor and manage your daily routines and projects. Sure, it can be done digitally, but only after you master the discipline of writing your ministry process. Showing Your Work allows you to invite another to assist you in improving your admin. skills and gifts. This becomes your quick reference to all your project management.
4. Setting Agendas
The Art of Prethinking any meeting will make you more productive. Some agendas are public—for a group meeting. What about your one-on-one meeting? Yes, any prearranged meeting is an opportunity for thinking ahead—planning on paper. Show Your Work to your Coach.
5. Vision Statements
The process of writing out your three visions (Church, Kidmin, and Yours) is a definitive process. In order to write it, you have to define it. Only God gives vision, but we have to catch it in order to represent it to our followers. Defining your vision for each of your programs will help shape your ministry. It helps to Show Your Work.
6. Program Evaluation
It is recommended that you write a fresh evaluation of all annual programs in your program menu as soon as possible when it is current. Filing it away for review at next years repeat program is the best way to improve upon your past program performance. Having a place to Show Your Work might keep you from reinventing the wheel and repeating your past mistakes.
7. Resume Revisions
Working on keeping your Resume up to date is an annual discipline. The agenda is collecting new data to update your file drawer. This keeps your resume current–a function of Showing Your Work, just in case you need it.
8. Job Description Rewrite
As your position emerges with the years, it is critically essential that you keep up with updating what you are really doing in the ministry. Few in church leader-ship really understand your Kidmin position as much as you. Continue to upgrade what you are doing and get it approved. Your annual review should be based upon what you are doing in your job description. Show your Work!
9. Qualification Brief
Collecting statements, compliments, and accomplishments from your ministry in writing keeps you from forgetting. The QB document will help get you some serious attention in applying for your next Kidmin position. It compliments your current resume. Show your Work!
10. Written Assignments
Coaches often make requests and challenges that will require you to Show Your Work. This is a clear invitation that you are involving your coach in your process. It allows for his review, input and encouragement. This is more than a homework assignment. It is your process that moves your ministry forward and helps you step it up.
11. New Program Design
This is particularly useful for building your infrastructure and supplementing your program menu. Showing Your Work allows you demonstrate all the steps needed and required to establish responsible, but thoughtful process.
12. Creating A Think Sheet
Putting some of your thoughts on paper will help you prepare for any meeting. Learning this process and Showing Your Work will help you avoid lots of problems.
13. Brainstorming a Message
Collecting verbs is the process of exploring your message options in writing. These words show up in your early message drafts. Showing Your Work allows the coach to participate in your research process.
14. Morning Pages
It does not really matter what you call your daily efforts to capture your thoughts, i.e., journaling or think sheets. This daily writing discipline can move your influence into transferable concepts for others beyond your walls. Refining your thought on paper will result from Showing Your Work.
15. Written Proposals
This has to doe with your taking some initiative to make structural changes and create new programs where you need to make your case and get approval from the staff and church leadership. Showing Me Your Work can potentially improve your proposal. It has worked for others.
All of these efforts to Show Your Work will help you to have a “studied” approach to your ministry and will allow your Coach to assist in your ministry process. These are some of the ways that you can take your ministry to another level.
Leave a Comment