Perfectly Designed

Your organization’s spiritual growth model is perfectly designed to produce the results you are currently getting.
~Deep and Wide, Andy Stanley

I love waffles.

I know that’s not really a profound statement, but they are delicious. I’ve had a few different waffle makers through the years. Currently, I have one that makes Belgium waffles. It has the nice, deep pockets, and gets them crispy on the outside, warm and soft on the inside. So good!

You know the great thing about waffle makers? They’re pretty consistent. That’s how they are designed. You can make an entire batch of waffles, and, for the most part, they will be pretty uniform. A waffle maker is designed to produce a consistent quality of waffle.

Isn’t that what most things end up doing? They end up producing exactly what they are designed to produce. I’ve never put batter into a waffle maker and ended up with a pancake or a biscuit.

In the same way, the systems we have set up in our lives produce the exact results we are getting. Not happy with your meal planning (or lack thereof)? Change it. It’s not going to get better by doing the same thing. Disappointed with your results at the gym? Try something different if you want different results.

If you don’t like the results, you are going to have to do something different. There’s no way around it. We can’t keep doing the same thing in our lives and expect different results. It’s just not going to happen. Didn’t some well-known person say that’s the definition of insanity?

Church leaders: if you aren’t getting the results you want from your current approach and systems, you have to try something different. And, I know, that’s easier said than done in the local church. Doing something different, changing something, can be a difficult experience. It can cost people their job if they aren’t careful about it. How we make changes is just as important as what changes we make, especially if “that’s the way we’ve always done it.”

It’s a difficult conversation to have, but sometimes “that’s the way we’ve always done it” needs to be met with “how’s that working out?” But there are ways to have that conversation tactfully. Hard conversations are hard… that’s why they are called hard conversations. But they are also important.

So, what systems are in place in your life, your church, your job, etc.? And what are those systems producing? If you don’t like the results, change the system. But, before you do, take a minute and have some waffles.