What’s your BHAG?

For many of us, one of the most common BHAGs we are familiar with is when President John F. Kennedy announced that we would have a man on the moon in eight years. This statement, of course, came before we had even placed a man in space. Quite a bold statement and, yes, a very audacious goal.

I believe that most everyone has audacious goals — if not audacious goals, then at least wild dreams and visions. As an example, I am not sure they still do this, but in the 70’s when I was graduating from high school we always had the senior class prophecy. At the time, I was not sure if I wanted to go into teaching and coaching or civil engineering. I was, and still am very intrigued by the design of bridges, major highway exchanges, etc. So for my senior prophecy, I said that I was going to design and build the first bridge between San Francisco and Hawaii. Now don’t panic, this bridge was designed to have gas stations, restaurants and hotels, so there were no worries of having people get stranded.

I don’t think that this was so much of an audacious goal, but rather my usual wild imagination running at full tilt. I do have a good imagination, just ask my mother. This imagination has allowed me to dream and set some realistic and achievable goals over the years.

No, I couldn’t build a bridge from San Francisco to Hawaii, but what bridges have been built? In youth ministry, have relationships been built? Have there been quality youth gatherings? And have we helped bridge the gap between our young people and their relationship with God? Of course we have set goals and had visions and dreams that were not realized, but I believe that youth ministry in our diocese continues to grow and expand, because there have been many people who have dreamed, imagined and yes, been bold enough to set some very audacious goals.

So, what is your audacious goal?

This same question was recently addressed regarding youth ministry in our diocese. Myself and several adults and youth gathered on a Friday evening through a Saturday afternoon in August. We asked ourselves this question: What is our "Big Hairy Audacious Goal" that is clear, compelling and taking us outside our comfort zone for the youth and youth ministry in our diocese? After much prayer and discernment, we did arrive at our audacious goal. I hope to share more of this with you in my next column.

For now, I ask that you spend some time thinking about this same thing. If you were to create an audacious goal for youth ministry in the Diocese of Dodge City, something that would take us outside our comfort zone, what would it be? Let’s see how close your BHAG is to the one created by the team that gathered in August.

Thank you!