Focus And Generosity Series

Focus And Generosity

Phil 3:10-14, Mat 20:25-28

May 19, 2003

I. I have been talking about the things that we need to develop to be the leaders that we should be in our families, in our profession, and in our service for God.

II. Something that we have to develop as leaders is Focus.

A. Tony Gwynn is probably the greatest hitter in the Major Leagues in the last fifty years, the best since Ted Williams. He’s won eight battling titles, and only Ty Cobb has won more.

B. Tony Gwynn’s career batting average is and incredible .339, but if you saw him on the street you might not think he was a Professional athlete. At 5’11" 220 pounds he does not look like a Mark McGwire, but he is a tremendous athlete, and the real key to his success is focus.

C. He loves hitting a baseball, several times each year he reads The Science of Hitting, by baseball great Ted Williams. He watches hours of videotape. At home he has a library of hitting video that comes from five VCRs connected to satellite that record games.

D. He watches tapes when he is on road trips, and takes two VCRS with him when he travels so that he can review every at bat he has had, and he talks with other players constantly about hitting.

E. He has been known to arrive at social events with batting gloves sticking out of his back pocket because he stopped on the way to hit a few baseballs.

F. Columnist George Will says, that people who are great at what they do, such as Gywnn "cultivate a concentration unknown to most people."

III. So what does it take to have the focus required to be the leader that God intends us to be.

A. The key things are priority and concentration. If we know what the priorities are but we don’t concentrate on them, then we know what to do but never get it done.

B. If we concentrate on what we do but we don’t have priorities then we work well but don’t make the progress we should.

C. To be the Leaders that God intends us to be we have to FOCUS ABOUT 70 PERCENT OF OUR TIME ON OUR STRENGTHS.

1. Effective leaders spend more time on what they do well than what they do wrong.

2. To be successful, focus on your strengths and develop them. That is where you should pour most of your time, energy and resources.

D. We have to FOCUS ABOUT 25 PERCENT OF OUR TIME ON NEW THINGS.

1. Growth means change. That means that we can’t grow if we only stay where we are.

2. If we want to get better we have to stretch ourselves, and keep looking for ways to improve.

3. In our relationship to God and our service to God, that means that we have to look for new ways to improve what we are, and how we serve God and improve our relationship with him.

4. As a leader in our family, in our profession, and in our service and relationship to God when we quit growing and putting forth the effort to learn new things and improve ourselves we stagnate and wither.

5. As a leader when we are through growing we’re through!

E. As leaders we also need to FOCUS 5 PERCENT ON AREAS OF WEAKNESS.

1. Nobody can avoid working on areas of weakness. The key to not letting our weaknesses bring us down is to set out to minimize it as much as possible.

2. As leaders we can do that by delegating as much as possible. That means that if we are weak in a certain area then we need to find people who are good at the things that we are not and enlist their help.

3. There are things that I am not good at, and there are things that other leaders are not good at, and we need to find people who are good at the things that we are not to assure that all the areas that need to be covered are covered. It has to be a team effort, we can’t be a good leader if we try to be the Lone Ranger. It will not work, we have to work as a team.

4. But for that to happen it means that everybody needs to be using their gifts to serve God here, because God puts the people here that He needs to be here, so that this body can function., But you are a part of this body and if you are not exercising the gifts that God gave you then some part of the ministry of this church is not working the way it should.