Delegation’s what you need…
Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
Acts 6:3-4
I have been heavily involved in running Model United Nations (MUN) organisations whilst working as a teacher. MUN is like a debating club that models the format of United Nations debates. One of the great things about the world of MUN is that the organisation is almost entirely student led, which means that young people get opportunities to develop leadership skills. When my students have found themselves getting overloaded with tasks, I always misquote the late, great Roy Castle (who always used to say “dedication’s what you need if you want to be a record breaker”), telling them “delegation’s what you need if you want to be a record breaker.” In other words, taking on too much can result in doing lots of things badly. There are some tasks that can be delegated out and given to other people to do, enabling you to focus on what is really important.
As the church continued to grow rapidly, the apostles found themselves becoming overloaded with jobs. One of the roles that they carried out was distributing aid to those who were in need. They found, however, that they were struggling to fulfil this role, and inadvertently left out some of the Greek-speaking widows, partly, no doubt, because of the language barrier. They decided that the best thing to do would be to appoint people specifically to the task of distributing aid. They sought out reliable people who could be trusted, and so picked people with a good reputation and who were clearly filled with the Holy Spirit, and therefore dedicated believers. Appointing others to this important role would enable the apostles to focus on what was most important – namely praying and teaching so that the word continued to be spread, and to enable even more people to have the chance to respond.
Think today about whether you are trying to do too much. Are you struggling to complete tasks, or do you find yourself doing them half heartedly and in a rush? Perhaps you need to consider delegating some of the things you do out to other people, to ensure that God’s work is done well.
