When a leadership team faces a dilemma, “What did we do last time?” is a question that tends to pop up. The assumption is past precedents help you make the right decision now.
While this is true, it’s not true as often as leaders expect.
Here are five reasons why arguing from precedent might lead your ministry in the wrong direction.
1. You’re a different ministry now.
If you always repeat the decisions you made in the past, you will stay stuck in the past. Lots of changes take place as the years pass. Your church or ministry develops and matures (at least hopefully). You grow as a leader.
As a mom and dad grow as parents, they make different decisions from child to child. They do this because their family has different needs and capacities than it did with no kids, or just one.
In the same way, leaders should make different decisions based on where the church is now and based on how they’ve developed as leaders.
2. This is a different decision.
Despite how much the circumstances of your current decision overlap with a past decision, just one difference could change everything.
To continue the example from parenting, it would be foolish to make the same parenting decisions with each child, because each child is different. The amount of freedom you give, the way you discipline and the way you encourage changes from child to child.
The same is true in church life. The amount of patience you show while exercising church discipline—even for the same sin—may look different based on how the member responds, or how far down the road of sin he has traveled.
3. The pride factor.
Sometimes you have to break precedent because you made the wrong decision in the past.
Instead of saving face, cut your losses and move on. Apologize to those who require apologies, and make a different decision this time.
