Creating New Opportunities: Part 2

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” - James Clear

I began last week’s post with this quote from Atomic Habits about how willpower alone isn’t enough for a person to reach their goals. Instead, they will only succeed as much as their systems allow them. I wrote about creating new systems to better help us reach our goals, and how those systems are already addressing our various needs.

We specifically saw this demonstrated through our Sunday morning Coffee Break. When we wanted to build more community, we didn’t say, “We just have to try harder,” but instead created something new which allowed us meet a need. And already, we’ve seen how this time has allowed us to be more welcoming and hospitable to one another and to guests who attend on Sunday morning.

But we’ve tried these new opportunities in other ways as well. For some time now, I’ve been wanting to implement a children’s prayground in the sanctuary so that children can better engage, alongside their families, in the worship service. 

I didn’t initiate any formal activities or programming, but just set up some kid’s tables and chairs with crayons and coloring sheets. The first Sunday they were set up, the kids in attendance were all in childcare with Ms. Wendy. But, when she brought them back to their families at the end of service, without any instruction or prompting, both of the boys in attendance saw the table and instinctively knew that the space was for them. They ran over, grabbed a seat, and immediately started coloring.

The next week, knowing this space was available, we brought the children into service, and they once again sat down at the table, began coloring, and even used kids’ instruments to accompany the hymns during worship. And every week since, we’ve had children participate in worship from the PrayGround. 

It’s not that we didn’t have the desire to be more inclusive of children before. We just didn’t have ample opportunities for their inclusion. When we allow ourselves to make adjustments to the existing ways of doing things, we may create new opportunities for our best parts to shine. After all, as James Clear said, we won’t rise to our goals but instead will fall to the level of our systems.

So far, I’ve mentioned our Coffee Break and Prayground as ways that we have created new systems to address our goals. Can you think of other ways in which we have changed our systems? Or, can you think of new systems we should put in place to address other goals we may have?