We started something new at church this morning. One Saturday morning each month we're going to start having what we call "Leadership Community" meetings. While these meetings are geared largely toward various ministry area leaders, they really are for anyone who wants to learn more about how to invest their lives in the lives of others, hoping to bring those others to deeper relationships with God so that someday those people, too, will want to invest themselves in others.

One of our speakers this morning opened by making the point that, if he had an evangelistic ministry that brought 1000 people per year to Christ, that would be considered pretty good. If his ministry spanned 33 years, he would bring 33,000 people to Christ. Sounds great, doesn't it?

However, if each year he invested himself in the life of just one person in order to truly disciple that individual and set them on a pathway of doing the same thing for one person a year, at the end of 33 years something like 9 BILLION people would have been reached. Sounds even better, doesn't it?

That really got me to thinking. How often do I close myself off from others? How often do I let fear or busy-ness or shyness stop me from coming alongside someone and spending time with them? How many opportunities do I miss? I don't want to miss those opportunities anymore.

If you'd like to track what we're doing through our Leadership Community, you can follow it at http://sfleadershipcommunity.wordpress.com.