I first heard the following saying from Paul Henderson, best known in Canada as the hockey player who scored the winning goal in the 1972 Russian-Canada series. So he is not really a leadership guru, but wherever the saying originated, I like the wisdom it reflects. It goes something like this: Start Small, Think Big, Go Deep, Finish Well. Over the years this has become a kind of mantra for the ministry, as it reflects our shared values and experience.

After several years of youth ministry in Canada, in 1990 Nancy and I moved to Africa to be involved in pastoral and leadership training in Kenya. Doing the math, this year marks exactly 35 years since those early days. From those days of small beginnings in Africa, the ICM training movement in Africa, under the guidance of ICM USA, has continued to grow to this day. Our personal journey took us in another direction, and by 2000 we moved as a family to Berlin in response to an invitation to train Christian leaders in Eastern Europe. You might be noticing a theme: Small beginnings. We had the “Start Small,” thing down and covered!

But we were also “Thinking Big.” The need for training leaders was great back then and has only increased over the decades as the Gospel has expanded around the world. In the face of such need, there is a temptation to Go Fast which can lead to being spread too thin. This is actually the reality in many parts of the world, where there has been much evangelism but much less discipleship. This has resulted in a Church (and leadership) which is said to be a mile wide and only an inch deep (or if you prefer metric, a kilometre wide and a centimetre deep – either  way you get the idea!).

However, an approach to ministry based on numerical growth over depth of character seldom results in “Finishing Well” – personally or in ministry. This is why it is so important to focus on “Going Deep.” Jesus’ example of spending his best time with a few disciples seemed misguided in the short term, but had pretty impressive results long term. As with discipleship, mentoring never happens with the masses.  As we see with  Jesus’ ministry, “Going Deep,” has far reaching and long lasting implication in people’s lives. Even within just a few short decades we have witnessed that as each generation of leaders mentors the next generation it ends up producing long term fruit. In the beginning, we could not have anticipated the thousands of leaders who continue to be impacted through our rather modest network. Likely only eternity will reveal the full picture of these efforts. 

I think this is applicable in each of our lives. Perhaps we get it through our culture, or maybe even in our mother’s milk, but we all seem to have an innate feeling that bigger and faster is better. Yet it is likely more accurate that deeper is better. Perhaps it is as we age that we truly see the fruit of this approach in our relationships and every area of our lives. A life well lived is likely more about quality than quantity. I would suggest that “Finishing Well” in this life is more about depth than breadth.