The Most Important Thing You Can Do This Week

Ever find yourself swamped with to-dos but neglecting the real meat of leadership? Let's shake off that Monday malaise together! I'm Todd Rhodes, your guide through the trenches of character development in our latest Healthy Church Staff podcast. We're unpacking Seth Godin's wisdom on avoiding the easy road in favor of the transformative journey of personal growth. This isn't about racking up quick wins; it's about the deep, deliberate cultivation of the people who look to us for guidance. And trust me, the impact of this commitment can be more profound than any checked box on your list.

This week, I throw down a challenge you won't want to breeze past: carving out time to intentionally invest in another leader's growth. I'll walk you through how one strategic meeting can redefine your week, sparking a ripple effect of character and capacity building. It's about rolling up your sleeves and dedicating yourself to the slow, rewarding work of shaping the future—one leader at a time. So forget about merely crossing tasks off; let's set our sights on the loftier goal of empowering those around us. And remember, as Larry the Cable Guy inspires us, it's time to "get it.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Hi, this is Todd Rhodes. I'm your host for the Healthy Church Staff podcast. Happy Monday to you. Today we're going to talk about I think it's interesting to me the most important thing you can do this week as a pastor or a church leader. Okay, it's Monday. We just had a busy weekend. Let's face it, we're all busy. Pastors I've met either love Mondays or they hate Mondays, and I'm not sure which you are, whether you love Mondays or hate Mondays. But here's what I want to leave you with today as you start your new work week in all of its busyness and I promise, at least hopefully it'll be worth your time.

Speaker 1: 0:50

And it comes from a quote from Seth Godin, and Seth says choosing to develop character is difficult because it requires avoiding the shorter, more direct path. It can be slow, expensive and difficult work. And if you're like me, especially on Monday, you're trying to get as many things done, as many things ticked off your list as you can Matter of fact, you might be I know some people. I won't admit to this, but sometimes I do it. If you've got a list of to do lists and you just finished something that wasn't on your list, do you ever take time to write it down and then cross it off. I do that. Sometimes it's called quick gains. It's crossing off all the to do's and if you're like me, monday is one of the days where you've got an extensive to do list that maybe you didn't get to on Friday. Maybe you didn't get to, or maybe new things added to your list over the weekend, but Mondays the day where I tried it. Man, if I have a good Monday, I usually have a good week. If I have a bad Monday, at least psychologically, it just means that my week is going to be horrible. That's sometimes so. The last thing you want to do on a day that you want to check off everything on your list is to hear about slow, expensive, difficult work, like Seth mentions. But can we talk? It's just you and me.

Speaker 1: 2:14

That's what we're called to do as church leaders developing character, not only in ourselves but in those people in our church, those people that are following our leadership, our key volunteers, our staff, our board. Developing character is part of our job and it takes time and it's not easy. This and the entitlement to take shortcuts and to do the easier things, the quick things, the things that we can just check off our list on this day, on this Monday, is a real challenge to it. If we're not careful, we'll do all the easy stuff and avoid the hard stuff, particularly on a day like today. But that's what we're called to do. We're called to develop character. It's developing character, not only in ourselves and others, is something that is hard work, but it's what we should be doing every day, not just on Mondays, but every day of the week.

Speaker 1: 3:11

So here's my challenge for you today, and it might be a challenge that you like, todd. I just got to get through my list. You can get through your list, but I'm going to ask you to do one thing today that I think will make a long different, a long term difference, and we talked about this a little bit last week. If you didn't listen to last week's series on deep work, go back and listen to that. I think it was really good. It ties right into this.

Speaker 1: 3:38

But here's my question and challenge for you today what meeting can you schedule right now to help develop someone's character, to help develop someone as a leader, to help make a long term difference in somebody's life? What meeting can you schedule now? My guess is that you've got one person or one meeting right now that comes to your mind, that you think maybe you've been putting it off, but you think, yeah, I could schedule that right now. Well, if it makes you feel better, add that meeting to your to-do list and then mark it off as soon as you make the appointment. That way you get that shot at Dope of Mean as well. But here's the thing one of the best things you can do this week is invest in another leader. In the words of the great theologian Larry the Cable Guy, let's get it.