Persistence

As I think about the past few weeks and the mission God is laying before us, I pray that we follow His leading and don't give up on the dream. It's easy to have a pep rally and get pumped up about a plan, but when the rubber meets the road, many people lose their enthusiasm. My hope is that we will persevere. That we will be persistent at pursuing God's plan for MVC.
Seth Godin once said, "Persistence isn't using the same tactics over and over. That's just annoying. Persistence is having the same goal over and over."
I believe what Seth is saying is that persistence means that you have an unshakable focus on the goal, not on the strategies we use to get there.
Often times when we're not immediately successful, we want to trash the goal. How many times have you heard someone say, "We can't build a selfless community in our church; we can't have an effective discipleship ministry here; we can't grow as long as we're stuck in this location."
But the goal isn't what needs to be trashed. In fact, the goal probably doesn't need to be re-evaluated. It's the methodology of reaching the goal that needs to be "tweeked".
When God has given us a mission, that's our goal. And when we've nailed down that goal and incorporated it into our identity, we can't let it go. We may need to change our approach, but we must remain persistent to reach the goal. Goals, not methodologies, require persistence.
"I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Jesus Christ, is calling us up to heaven." (Philippians 3:14)

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