God May Be Speaking in Places You Aren't Looking.
The Problem
Church leaders spend a lot of time around church leaders. We listen to ministry podcasts. We attend church conferences. We read church books. We follow church leaders online. None of that is wrong. Some of my best thinking has come from conversations with pastors who were a few seasons ahead of me.
But somewhere along the way, many of us unintentionally narrowed where we expect to hear from God. We assume he speaks primarily through ministry settings, through the sermon, through the conference breakout, and through the leadership book.
The longer I lead, the less confident I am about that assumption.
IS THIS YOU?
You've spent years studying ministry. But when was the last time you intentionally studied your community?
Not census data. Not demographics. People. What they're worried about. What they're celebrating. What they're struggling with. What they wish existed but can't find.
The people in your community are telling a story. Most leaders are too busy to hear it.
You know your attendance trends, your giving trajectory, and your volunteer gaps. But could you describe what your neighbors are actually carrying right now, the real weight, not the presenting problem? That gap is worth paying attention to.
THE insight
Most church leaders spend the year looking at attendance, giving, volunteer numbers, and calendars. Those things matter. But they can also create tunnel vision.
A leader whose primary inputs are ministry metrics and ministry content will eventually run out of fresh imagination. The categories become fixed. The assumptions go unchallenged. The blind spots widen.
Summer creates a rare opportunity to lift your head. A conversation with a local business owner. A walk through a neighborhood you don't usually visit. A coffee with a teacher, a parent, or a city council member.
These aren't ministry strategies. They're invitations to pay attention to what God may already be doing in the world just outside your building.
Many churches don't need better ideas. They need better observation. Perspective usually comes before direction.
Before God gives direction, he often changes what we're paying attention to. The leaders in Scripture who received the clearest direction weren't usually the ones who had better plans. They were the ones who had been paying attention to the burning bush, to the quiet voice, and to the patterns in front of them that nobody else had stopped long enough to see.
What you observe this summer may not make sense until October. That's okay. Write it down anyway. Discernment is rarely immediate. It's cumulative. The observation comes first. The clarity comes later.
application
This week, go somewhere you wouldn't normally go. Not a ministry event. Somewhere in your community that falls outside your usual circles.
Stay curious without needing an agenda. Talk to someone about what they're noticing. Ask what's changing in the neighborhood. Ask what they wish existed that doesn't.
You're not gathering data for a strategic plan. You're paying attention. That's a different posture, and it tends to produce a different kind of clarity.
ASK YOURSELF
When was the last time I spent meaningful time outside of ministry circles, just paying attention to the community my church exists in?
What am I noticing right now that I wouldn't have noticed six months ago? What might that be telling me?
If God has been speaking through what I'm observing in my community, what's the clearest thing he's been saying?
The most useful thing you can bring into your fall planning isn't a new framework. It's a fresh observation about the world your church exists in.
Invitation
If what you're observing this summer is raising questions about what your community actually needs and whether your church is positioned to respond, that's a conversation worth having before fall planning begins.
Let's think through it together.
Let’s talk →You may not need coaching. Just a conversation.
SPECK Coaching helps growing churches build organizational clarity, reduce leadership pressure, and develop the kind of healthy rhythms that let the mission actually move.
