How to Identify and Prioritize the Pressing Needs Around You

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Okay, so you know that God created you and saved you to do good works that meet the pressing needs around you. But here’s the problem: you see all kinds of pressing needs around you and some of them are overwhelming. How do you go about the seemingly impossible task of addressing them?

Let’s first talk about how to prioritize pressing needs and then about how to identify them. Here are some suggestions on prioritizing pressing needs:

To identify and prioritize pressing needs around you, start with your inner “circles of responsibility” and then work outward.

I wrote about circles of responsibility in “A Christian Man’s Five Circles of Responsibility…and Blessing.” Those circles of responsibility are: a Christian man himself, his immediate family, his extended family, his church, and his neighbor (in both the narrow sense of his literal neighbor down the street and the broader sense of anyone he comes across in the course of living out his life).

First and foremost, a Christian man who is not working hard to support himself, and is instead a burden on others, needs to address that situation immediately. He cannot even begin to think of meeting the needs of others until he learns to meet his own needs. “Each man shall bear his own burden” (Galatians 6:5, KJV). “Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need” (Ephesians 4:28).

The exceptions, of course, are men who are disabled or, as in my case so that I can pursue men’s ministry, men who have a mutual agreement with their wife that she will be the chief bread winner.

So the inner circle–the Christian man himself–receives first priority only insofar that providing for himself enables a Christian man to provide for others, in the same way that adult passengers on commercial flights are instructed to put oxygen masks on themselves first before they put oxygen masks on their children.

And then the pattern continues, with each concentric circle given priority over the ones outside: Immediate family members have priority over extended family members, church members and neighbors. Extended family members have priority over church members and neighbors. And church members have priority over neighbors.

This doesn’t mean that we can’t address pressing needs in multiple concentric circles at the same time. But it does mean that, if push comes to shove, we focus first on the inner circles over the outer ones. We never, for example, sacrifice the needs of our wife or children in order to meet the needs of a widow around the corner.

So we prioritize pressing needs by working from the inside circle of responsibility to the outside. But how do we go about identifying pressing needs?

Pressing needs are usually obvious.

A single mother in your church is diagnosed with terminal cancer. A tornado destroys your adult child’s home. Your neighbor falls off a ladder and becomes a quadriplegic.

All of these situations present themselves as genuine pressing needs requiring immediate attention.

Pressing needs require further study.

What exactly are the circumstances of the pressing need and what resources are available? For example, the single mother may have parents who can care for her children, or your adult child’s home may be covered by insurance, etc.

Pressing needs require discernment.

There is a Vietnam vet in our neighborhood who for years has walked around every day with a huge backpack on his back, even in the dead of winter. Once I stopped and talked with him and he told me he is homeless. But I can tell from his appearance and clothing that he is well fed and definitely not homeless. Instead, he obviously has a mental illness, possibly PTSD. Perhaps he thinks he is still out on day patrol in Vietnam.

The lesson here is that we should not hesitate to be skeptical when skepticism is merited. But we need to balance skepticism with the understanding that there are genuine pressing needs out there that need to be addressed and must not be overlooked.

This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.

Since 2003 New Commandment Men’s Ministries has helped hundreds of churches throughout North America and around the world recruit teams of men who permanently adopt widows, single moms and fatherless children in their congregations for the purpose of donating two hours of service to them one Saturday morning each month. We accomplish this with a free training site called New Commandment Men’s Ministry Learn how to mobilize your men’s ministry to meet every pressing need in your church at newcommandment.org.

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Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom

and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.

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