After you have been driving a car for a while, you know how easy it is to forget to check your blind spots. It starts with an intense need to make sure there are no cars around you. Over time, that turns into a casual glance. The final step is not even looking because you just know there are no cars there. You drive with confidence until that one time when you fail to check your blind spot and end up cutting off the car beside you – not that I have any personal experience with that.
When we fail to look in our blind spots, we can cause a lot of damage around us. At best, it becomes a minor inconvenience to people who are driving beside us or the people behind us who slam on their brakes. At worst, there is a collision that can create a lot of damage to vehicles as well as people.
When we fail to look in our blind spots, we can cause a lot of damage around us.
Leadership can be the same way. As leaders, we all have blind spots. When we fail to look at them and act appropriately, we can cause an inconvenience for people or, at worst, do a lot of harm to people.
What Happens When It’s All About You
I believe that the biggest blind spot I have seen for men’s ministry leaders is the need to build ministry for my own needs.
Let me explain. There are leaders who know they are struggling with loneliness. So, you have decided that a small group or a monthly breakfast is the best place for you to have your need met, and now you have decided that your men’s ministry will revolve around small groups or monthly breakfasts. After all, if you need it, then surely every other man needs it as well.
There are leaders who know they are repeatedly sinning in certain ways, and so they believe they need accountability. Because that is what you require, you end up deciding that’s what every man must need and so your ministry efforts focus on accountability.
Then there are other leaders who just feel they need a good challenge every once in a while, and an annual retreat or conference is the best way that has worked for you. So, every other man must need the same thing.
At best, driving into this blind spot will simply tell men that your men’s ministry is only for certain men and if they don’t fit the model, then they need not participate. You will limit your impact.
At worst, you can cause damage by putting a man in an area of ministry that he does not need or isn’t ready for yet. Imagine forcing a new believer to attend a weekly accountability group for men dealing with porn addictions – the poor guy would never know what hit him. He has no idea why we confess our sins to one another because no one has taught him that yet.
Be careful not to impose what you need on the men that you are trying to lead. You need to make sure your ministry helps different men who have different needs and who need different types of experiences to help them grow in their walk with God.
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