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One of the challenges every leader faces is delegating responsibility and authority.  In Children's Ministry at CCC we're at a stage where myself and our environment directors probably need to delegate more of what we do.  In approaching that challenge, there are 2 principles for delegation that I think are important to remember.  I talked about the first principle in the last post, and the other principle is…

#2 Let it Fail

Another principle is to let it fail.  Often times we never delegate certain responsibilities because we feel like nobody will take them on.  Obviously one way to hand those responsibilities off is to ask someone if they will take it on, but sometimes people are already aware that you need help with something (usually because you aren't doing it well).  In those cases, it's best to let it fail by not doing it.  Clearly there are some things you can't let fail, but many things you can, and people will surprise you by stepping up and taking on that responsibility.  I have found this to be true especially when I didn't feel like anyone was trained/equipped enough to take on the responsibility, but by letting it fail (not doing it), they learned on their own and made it happen.

In some ways I think delegation requires a little faith, believing in others and believing in God's plan that is based on everyone in the Church using their unique gifts and abilities to contribute to a shared vision and purpose.

One of the challenges every leader faces is delegating responsibility and authority.  In Children's Ministry at CCC we're at a stage where myself and our environment directors probably need to delegate more of what we do.  In approaching that challenge, there are 2 principles for delegation that I think are important to remember.

#1 List it Out

I think we have to list out everything we are responsible for if we ever hope to delegate any of it.  Much of our busyness comes from not having a good understanding of all the things we actually have to do.  We just get them done when we need to and underestimate how much of our time it takes.  Our team is listing out everything we are responsible for, and then dividing those responsibilities up into 3 categories: 

• Things only we can do
• Things other people could do
• Things nobody needs to do

Even if we can't hand off a ton of our responsibilities, every little bit helps us be more effective and gives other people opportunities to contribute in a bigger way.

In the next post I'll share what I think is another important principle to keep in mind when trying to delegate.