Leaders Have to Make Decisions All the Time

• Everybody needs to make decisions all the time.
• Some decisions are made more consciously than others.
• Nothing will happen if we don't make decisions.

'God's Man of Power For The Hour'

• In many churches, we often look for heroic, anointed leaders.
• There is some truth in the fact that God wants leaders to be heroic in their role.
• However, this can put a lot of pressure on leaders to be right all the time.
• When you are a leader, you won't get it right all the time - and when you don't, this doesn't invalidate your leadership.
• To stay healthy, we need to disavow people of such a high view of leaders (particularly amongst certain cultural groups).
• As a leader, you will make lots of wrong decisions in your leadership journey.

How to Make Decisions

Apply Biblical Understanding

• Have good spiritual health before the decision - regularly engage in the spiritual disciplines. We can often wait until the crisis moment, but we first need to build a foundation.

Wait For Prophetic Leading

• It is important to allow enough time for God to lead and guide.
• Very few decisions are as important as they first seem.
• It is possible to go to the opposite extreme and dilly-dally too much.
• Listen to other people and hear God's voice through them.

Check Your Motives

• Be self-aware enough to know your own predisposition.
• Are you tempted towards a certain choice because it makes life easy for yourself?
• Are you trying to avoid a confrontation (or charge into one)?

Ask God For Wisdom

Listen to Others

A Decision That Didn't Go Well

• Richard has heard God speaking about going for 2000 people.
• They started looking for buildings with 2000 seats in an auditorium plus lots of great facilities, breakout rooms, etc.
• But whatever they tried, they were unable to get such a venue.
• They realised that it was a wrong decision because it wasn't working.
• It can be tough to know when is the time to say something was a wrong decision and when is the time to push through.
• It comes down to hearing God.
• Richard still thinks that he heard God about thinking next of 2000 - but he had interpreted it in terms of what he already assumed (a big building with everyone together in one place).
• Going to multiple congregations had been tried in the past but not worked - so they were feeling burned by that option.
• In the end, they needed to come to the congregation and just say they had got it wrong.
• You need a leadership culture that has a readiness to apologise.
• When you have an idea of what God is saying, it's good to step out and have a go - even when you don't have certainty about how things will go.
• Your best leadership decisions are decisions that create space for people.
• As leaders, we can't control everything.
• Give people a spacious place, and then establish the boundaries for them - the principles/truths that keep it safe for people as they have a go.

A Decision That Did Go Well

• The decision to plant congregations again - this time calling them sites (because 'congregations' hadn't worked in the past, that name had baggage so it was re-branded).
• Just because something didn't work in the past, that doesn't mean that thing was necessarily wrong - look at the context and circumstances.
• There is no one model that always works.
• They started planting in partnership with some Methodist churches.
• They started a new site in a run down old building - but there was a vibrancy and life there, and God was doing things.
• The plant is in a largely Muslim area - God challenged Richard about not giving up on any place.
• They put on a community Christmas dinner and lots of locals came along and commented on feeling loved and included.
• The key is seeing what God is up to and going with that.