Do For One

This is a great podcast where Andy Stanley explains why we must “Do for one, what we wish we could do for everyone.” Andy Stanley has been a dynamic leader at Northpoint Church in Georgia and the leadership systems and structures that he has set up have greatly impacted the current church that I work at. The concept is that as leaders we begin to be pulled in many directions. It becomes easy to then decide that since you have little time, resources, and energy, investing into others becomes something that cannot feasible or fair. The result often times is to pull away from doing for any. This becomes a great hindrance to leading the people you work with. Andy says that you must do for one what you wish you could do for others so that you are giving and so that people are gaining from your gifts of time, energy, experience ect. The way Andy Stanley illustrates it is that he does employee reviews of the organization. He reads these and saw that someone asked for a better paper cutter. He decided that he would purchase the cutter for the individual and give it to them. Could he afford to give a new paper cutter to all of the people on his campuses? No. The individual who received realized that they are important.

Practically, I was down at the Drive conference in Atlanta last week. There, they used this concept practically by creating a “drivewish” twitter account. They didn’t really announce it but they used it for people to tweet what they wish could happen for them at the drive conference. The account was filled tweets about materials, backstage passes, individual time with different people and other things. I asked for a drive t-shirt that was only available to the staff. I received a T-shirt from them and was blessed by their desire to create a great experience. The next example is that I was asking a question of one of the Breakout presenters after a session. She did not have the answer but invited me to sit down with another of the team members for about 45 minutes. Finally, I was given materials from one of their leadership classes utilizing theology. These resources are not even available for most people! Out of 5,000 people there was no way they could provide one-on-one time or a t-shirt for everyone, or give everyone access to these resources but they did for me. Andy’s concept of doing for one what you wish you could do for all is practically lived out in his ministries that he leads.