Managing the Clock

Watching some of the NFL playoffs this weekend, as well as the endless bowl season in college football, got me thinking about time management. Think about a football game. Both teams get the same amount of time to try to win the game. There is no advantage one way or the other, but so often a game comes down to whether a team manages the clock well or poorly.  (Note: I am not intentionally taking a shot at your coach. If you think about it, there is something funny about someone sitting in front of a TV for 3 ½ hours screaming at a coach for mismanaging the clock at the end of a game. And yes, I’m guilty.)  Have you ever noticed that the best coaches are the ones who know how to use the clock well? You don’t see a lot of 4 – 12 coaches who are amazing at using the clock.

It’s the same for leaders. We all have the same amount of time, yet good leaders consistently get more out of theirs than others (Ephesians 5:15 – 16).  It’s not because they aren’t busy.  Think about the best leaders you know. I’m guessing that they are among the busiest people you know.  Do you know how they got to be great leaders? They put in the time. They worked harder and longer than most people. There’s no way around it. To become more effective leaders, we have to put in the time.

Use our Life Groups (small groups) at CCCN as an example. If you were to go to each one and assess which ones have people who seem the most engaged, the most open, and are seeing God move regularly, they are being led by people who have put in the time and energy it takes to develop that kind of group. They aren’t less busy than anyone else. They are managing their clock well, finding time to make calls during the week, to show up at a kid’s recital, bowling together on the weekend, praying and thinking about the best way to get people to share what they really think and how they actually feel each week.

The good news is that, if God has called you into leadership somewhere, none of what those great leaders do is impossible for the rest of us to do with practice and time. Like it so often does on NFL Sundays, it all comes down to how we manage the clock.

What’s one thing you can do this week to help manage the clock better?