Creating New Opportunities: Part 3

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

For the past two weeks, I began my reflections 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.

Last week, I wrote about creating a Prayground in the Sanctuary so that children can better engage in the worship service alongside their families. It’s not that we didn’t have the desire to be more inclusive of children before: we just didn’t have ample opportunities to do so. But since implementing the PrayGround, we've seen how this space draws children into our existing worship service and communicates to them and their families that they belong.

This week, I'm thinking about Out of the Office Hours. To be honest, I don't think the need for this change was as obvious as the others I've mentioned. I hadn't heard anyone share that the pastor needed to be more accessible. Still, I knew that as a new Senior Pastor, I needed to establish trust with the larger congregation, so creating more opportunities for authentic conversation was crucial. I wasn't sure what the outcome would be, but I knew that simply having a goal of better communication wasn't enough without a system in place. 

And now, two months after starting Out of the Office Hours, I've had great conversations with many of you and haven't had a single week where somebody didn't attend. It seems that there was a need for the pastor to be more accessible to the congregation, so I'm grateful for how this system has addressed that need. Thank you to those of who you have attended, and I encourage those who haven't to give it a try if it is something you think would be beneficial to you.

For all of these examples, I'm grateful for the way our congregation has embraced new systems in order to help us better live into our calling and address the specific goals we have. 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.