If you’re like me, finding the negative in your ministry is a lot easier than seeing the positive. It’s not that we can’t see the good… it’s just the things we’d like to see changed and improved are constantly in our faces where the positives are typically those things the are running smoothly and therefore more easily ignored. Yet another case of the urgent outweighing the important.

It’s mandatory for folks like us to compensate for that by finding natural ways to see and glorify the positive. We can do that by finding a simple way to give some praise to the people in our programs who are making that happen.

One of the things I’ve done in the past… and need to start doing again… is committing to write out and actually mail one postcard per week to someone that I noticed was going above and beyond. I had a bunch printed at Preferred Print with our logo… but it’s not the front of the card that matters. I’d write out a brief note on the back mentioning specifically what I caught them doing right during the last service, sign it, and mail that puppy out. The feedback was amazing. Folks would keep the card on their fridge for months and months.

Not only is such a little thing a huge blessing to the person you’re praising, it will help you to look for (and find) the positive things that are happening all around you. Though it is important to walk around and look for things that need improving (thanks Jim Wideman) doing nothing but that can quickly make folks like me feel that there is nothing excellent going on and that everything is less than it should be. Even if that’s reality… even if it is true… there are still folks putting their hearts and souls into your ministry and they’re doing a lot of good along the way to where you all want to be.

Recently I tossed the remainder of the cards because we updated our logos… kinda got out of the habit. Guess it’s time to submit another postcard order. I’m thinking about a design featuring my son…