Your Realist Needs an Enthusiast. (And Vice-Versa.)
Let me start with a small confession: the older I get, the less excitable I am.
I don’t necessarily like that. I kind of miss Danny in his 20s, who took on way too much and said yes to everything and no matter the question, the answer was always, “We can pull that off.”
Maybe 29 years of ministry – with all of its budget caps and deadlines and occasional threats of burnout – has led me to recognize my limits. Oh, I still enjoy a good brainstorming meeting, a blank whiteboard, and the question What if…?, but if I’m honest, my inner realist is winning out more and more.
And that’s fine.
But.
My realist needs an enthusiast. I need a person (or many people) on my team who aren’t thinking about line items and volunteer limitations and the inevitable phrase, “We can’t fit that on the calendar.” I need people whose heads are fixed firmly in the clouds and who never met a wild idea they didn’t love.
My realist needs an enthusiast.
I need people who will help me dream. Who will break me out of my box. Who will put their finger in my chest and say, “You’re not trusting God for big enough things.” I need people who will ignore the numbers on a spreadsheet and the numbers on the clock and instead say, “Yeah, but what if…?”
And while my realist needs an enthusiast, enthusiasts need realists. While the enthusiast is dreaming, the realist is planning. While the enthusiast is mentally spending money they don’t have, the realist is actually calculating the money they do have.
It takes realists and enthusiasts to make the world go ’round. Ministry is doable with one or the other, but it’s sustainable with both.
So which are you? An enthusiast or a realist?
And who is your opposite that you need to invite into your world?
