Change is Unlikely to Happen Without a Sense of Urgency

There is probably at least one way that your community breaks your heart. Too many people are homeless. Kids are not receiving the quality education they need to thrive. Vulnerable women and kids are hurting in volatile domestic situations.

Too many times, we shrug our shoulders and say internally, “That crisis is unlikely to change.”

Unlikely. That’s a hopeless word.

Let’s flip that idea on its head. What if we got fired up by a sense of urgency to solve the problem? In my just-released book, Unlikely Good, I outline eleven keys to accomplishing good in the most unlikely places.

Key number one is Urgency. The following is an excerpt from that chapter:

“Eric Morse was a 5-year-old boy living in the Ida B. Wells housing project in my hometown, Chicago, Illinois. Eric and his 8-year-old brother, Derrick, were lured by two older boys, aged 10 and 11, to an abandoned apartment on the 14th floor of a dilapidated tower.

The older boys demanded that Eric steal candy from a local store, but Eric refused to do so.

The boys proceeded to torture Eric, stabbing him, spraying him with Mace, and throwing him down the stairs. In his final, tragic moments, the boys dangled him from the apartment window as his brother, Derrick, tried to fight the boys off.

Eric dropped 14 stories to his death.

When two Christian women living in York, Traci Foster and Connie Rae, read Eric’s story, it broke their hearts. They discussed it with the women in their church’s Bible study, and for a brief moment, contemplated a move to Chicago. That kind of move seemed unrealistic.

These faith-fueled women quickly realized they did not need to move across the country to find Chicago-sized problems. Although York’s population of 470,000 is relatively small compared to Chicago’s 9.6 million, it faces many of the same challenges.

I imagine that Traci and Connie felt that it was unlikely that they could make a dent in York’s significant challenges. But they knew that God was leading them to move from heartbreak to action.”

One of the great challenges leaders must overcome is creating a genuine sense of urgency. Too often, well-meaning leaders charge ahead like Lone Rangers, running toward the fire alone, fueled by passion but disconnected from the people and systems already at work. The result is burnout, duplication, and discouragement.

Urgency is not panic. It’s clarity.

Urgency helps a community see that the cost of doing nothing is greater than the risk of doing something together.

People rarely move until they believe a problem is so painful that it has to change.

The best leaders help others feel the crisis, not just understand it. Only then will your community begin to feel the urge to do something about it.

Change is unlikely to happen without a sense of urgency.

Questions to consider:

• How is your hometown breaking your heart?

• What is the crisis you can no longer ignore?

• What problem is urgent enough that people must act?

• How can you help people feel the crisis and not just understand it?

Simple next step:
Write your answers down. Share them with one trusted person. Urgency grows when it is shared by more than one person.