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A God-Honoring Decision Making Process, Pt 2

Chris Patton — Wed, 18 Jan 2017 02:30:35 +0000

If you are a Christian business owner or leader, then you have faced situations where you had to make a decision. This simply comes with the job. Unfortunately, many of us are not trained in the skill of decision making. Everyone assumes we should know how to do this – no training necessary, right?

Decision Making – A Critical Skill

I would have to argue with that assumption. I would say that decision making is a critical skill that requires experience, knowledge, wisdom, and a whole host of other qualities that we should have as leaders.

So what are we to do if we face decision making situations where we do not feel qualified? What about those situations where we DO feel qualified, but we want God to lead us? How do we handle these various decision making opportunities? Is there a class we can take?

5 Decision Making Questions

Well, there may be a class, but I think I have something that will give you some help until you find the class. I have a set of five questions (and supporting questions) that I believe will give you a head start toward making those God-honoring decisions you desire to make. These questions come from an excellent C12 segment.

In my last post, I gave you the first question. Hopefully you found some value in that one. In this post, I want to tackle the next two questions on the list.

Question #2

Will this decision benefit your first ministry priorities?

These are your personal relationship and time with God, your spouse, your children, and others in need. Overall, will your ministry effectiveness in relationships outside the business be enhanced? What about inside the business?

First Things First

I love the way this question begins by asking how this decision will affect our own personal relationship and time with God! Frankly, if it stopped right there it might be enough for us to ask.

Folks, if you are considering a decision that you know will take you away from or limit your time with God, then there is no need to go further in this process. Run from that choice!

Other Relationships?

What about the time and relationship with your family? This is not only critical to ask as it relates to your family as a whole, but your spouse and children individually as well. Some decisions we consider may be destructive of our family relationships while other decisions may only interrupt these relationships for a time. We must be honest with ourselves as we determine the impact and consequences.

Finally, this question asks about how the decision will effect our ministry inside and outside of the business. If one is limited for the sake of increasing the other, maybe that is okay. If both are decreased for the sake of something temporal, maybe not.

Question #3

Will you be violating Scriptural principles?

For example, will you be entering an ‘unequally yoked’ situation or being tempted by lust, greed, or pride? What spiritual dangers are inherent in this decision? Why are you undertaking it…really?!?

Enlist Help!

The first two parts of this question (Scriptural principles & spiritual dangers) are more often fairly easy to determine as long as you are steeped in Scripture. If you are not, then you need to run this by someone who is. Skipping over these parts of the question because you don’t know one way or the other is simply asking for trouble. Don’t do it!

As for the last part (Why?), this can be tough. Discerning our own root motives is difficult at best, even impossible at times. This is when it is crucial to have someone you trust to help you. An accountability partner or a spouse can often shed light on areas or ask follow up questions that will help you to see the truth in your heart.

While this decision making process is much more effective when we check our motives with someone else, you may not always have that person available for help. In those cases, while praying through it, you do the best you can to identify the root motive.

Increase The Odds!

Again, every situation in your decision making situations will be different. I cannot possibly cover every scenario. All I want you to get from this decision making process is a set of questions that raise the critical issues so you do not overlook anything. If all of the issues are raised and all perspectives considered (again – while praying through it), then your decision making is likely to produce better results.

Would recent decisions have changed if you had asked these questions earlier?

What decisions are you facing that need to be run through this process?

Who is your go-to person for help with Godly decisions?

Photo by pavel_klimenko/iStock

How To Honor God With Your Decision Making Process

Chris Patton — Mon, 16 Jan 2017 02:30:19 +0000

As Christian business owners and leaders, we are often faced with major decision making opportunities. Unfortunately, these situations do not always come with much warning and often carry significant consequences. Though these opportunities are critical functions of our leadership roles, we are seldom adequately trained in how to execute them – especially from a Christian perspective. In light of that, I want to share a simple set of decision making questions that can help you make God-honoring decisions.

Eternal Perspective

If you have read any of my posts before today, you likely know that one of my recurring themes is that of having an eternal perspective. In my mind, decision making that is done from anything but an eternal perspective is not God-honoring and misses the mark.

Sure, some of the decisions we are asked to make from day to day are not ones that appear like they will have a major impact on eternity. I get that. At the same time, sometimes appearances are not what they seem.

Significant Consequences

Sometimes seemingly small decisions can carry significant consequences. It is for this reason that we need to take our decision making process seriously. We need to attempt to include God in every decision we make. How far you take this advice is up to you, but I think you can understand what I mean.

Not only do we need to include Him in our decision making process, but we also need to make sure that we have some sort of structure for our bigger decisions.

Decision Making Structure

I am not recommending anything too formal, but a good set of questions that we can go through when facing these larger decisions can be a huge help. A recent C12 segment included a great set of questions that can serve this very purpose. I am pulling the main questions, and supporting questions, directly from this segment.

My suggestion is that you take these five questions and put them somewhere you can access easily and quickly when you need them. Then, when faced with a tough decision making situation, pull them out and go through them one at a time.

Improve Your Odds!

While this decision making process will not guarantee you to make the right decisions every time, it will significantly increase the odds in your favor. Depending on how honest you can be with yourself, you should see improved results by asking these questions.

Rather than try to cram all five of these questions into one long post, I am going to break them into several posts. I will cover the first question in this post.

Here is the first question:

Decision Making Question #1

How will your most important priorities as God’s child and servant be enhanced by this decision?

In other words, will such a decision enhance your fruitfulness? Or, might these very priorities (i.e., your calling) be hindered if you make such a decision? (Remember, God doesn’t work against Himself!)

You may want to read that a couple of times to make sure you understand exactly what it is asking.

Most Important Priorities?

First, what are your most important priorities as God’s child and servant? While this may be debatable to some, I think Scripture answers this quite clearly. In Matthew 22:35-40, Jesus tells us that our top priorities are these:

Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul.
Love your neighbor as yourself.

Priorities Affected?

Second, you need to ask yourself how these priorities would be affected by this decision. Would one of the options before you enhance the fruit you are bearing in living out these priorities? Would that option limit your fruit?

In some cases, the decision may have no affect at all on these priorities. That is certainly possible, but we need to make sure by praying through our answer. Sometimes we can hide critical factors from ourselves if we are not careful. We must ask God to reveal these to us.

Stay Tuned!

I hope you can see how this question can help to guide us through the decision making process. In my next posts, I will cover the remainder of the questions.

Stay tuned!

Think about a recent decision that you have made.

Would this question have changed how you approached that decision?

Would it have changed your decision altogether?

Photo by SIphotography/iStock