Holiday World vs the Reactor Zone

Holiday World vs. the Reactor Zone
If you like Amusement Parks and you have a fam I’m told that you’d like a Southern Indiana Amusement Park called Holiday World. It’s supposed to be great for kids – lots of rides, free soft drinks all day and not too far away. So, there you’ve got it – a quick commercial for Holiday World – the Amusement Park.

Now, for the ‘Holiday World’ I want you to consider….

I serve on the staff of a rapidly growing church near Louisville, Kentucky. Those of us on ‘core staff’ are finding that we’ve got more to do than could be done by 5 people working on overload. In a meeting with our core staffers today we talked about how we deal with the unrelenting pressure of all that’s coming at us. Julia Yuen, our Children’s Minister says she goes to ‘Holiday World’ – a special place in her house where she reads and recharges her batteries.

All strong leaders either have learned or will learn that if we’re gonna be proactive and provide vision and direction for growing organizations that we’ve got to spend a whole lot more time at ‘Holiday World’. We’ve got to find places to recharge and refresh and get out ahead of the day to day ‘reactor zone’. If we spend all of our energy just addressing pressing needs and taking surveys of what people ‘really want/need’ then we become more like Reactor Zone Pizza Delivery guys dressed in red hats than leaders of Kingdom Advancing causes.

Jesus found ways to go to ‘Holiday World’ as did Enoch, Abraham, Moses, David...all the big guys named in Hebrews 11. It’s a choice we’ve all got to make. Take more time at ‘Holiday World’ to walk with Him or wait for people to call in and order more pizza.

I’ll take Holiday World any day and walk with God. Yes, I do listen to people and yes I register their desires and needs, and even do surveys. And, yes, I work on solutions. But, I don’t live like a Pizza Delivery guy in the Reactor Zone. I’m not hanging out waiting for my next move to be dictated by someone calling in for a ‘thin crust, oven baked pizza pie’. I’m imagineering how we can put a Pizza Place in strategic locations all over the world and suit up hundreds of red-hatted drivers to meet the needs of a hungry world.

When I head off to ‘Holiday World’ I’m working with the Kingdom Maker on a long term strategic initiative to deliver the Kingdom Hot and Fresh to doorsteps and grass huts and igloos anywhere on the planet at a moment’s notice. It’s gonna take a global team of Rising Leaders to get this done and I’m excited about being a part of it!

So, here’s to ‘Holiday World’ and to the Rising Leaders who are investing a whole lot more time there and doing a lot less wheel spinning in the Reactor Zone.

(If that gets your juices flowing at all I’d love to hear from you. Just fire an email to jeff@risingleaderalliance.com or head over to the ‘not quite what it’s gonna be when it grows up’ web site for Rising Leaders at http://www.risingleaderalliance.com )

p.s. If you are a 'rising leader' who's excited about advancing the Kingdom of God, then you'll want to grab some great FREE resources over at www.risingleaderalliance.com