Eliminate the 'Extra' Things That Don't Belong
By that I mean after we've examined what it means to truly be a church, and what specific elements we are particularly going to focus on....we need to not do everything else. We need to really carefully look through everything that we do and make sure that it reinforces what we deem to be the 'main thing.'
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Cliche sign ftw
To me, it's a matter of wasted sideways energy. If we worry and focus on things that don't really matter, that aren't really important, that aren't really the dna of the church or of Christianity...then we're not only wasting our time but we're experiencing some pretty hefty opportunity cost by what we could have been focusing on instead.
You know?
So I think we need to get rid of the extra garbage...and that's going to look different for every church and for every person. We need to examine what that extra garbage is:
- Maybe it's the church 'library' of one room full of books from the 1960's and before that nobody reads...but could be used for something else
- Maybe it's Sunday School
- Maybe it's a VBS style program
- Maybe for some, it would be meeting on a Sunday
- Maybe for others, the midweek service
- A softball team, a puppet ministry, the 'cafe,' singles ministry, married couples ministry, or even (gasp!) the small groups structure
Maybe it would be one of an infinite amount of programs or church environments...and really requires a huge amount amount of thought & prayer to figure it out.
But I think it's important that the extra elements are removed...and the sooner the better, so focus can go to where we want it.
I think we all have something in our mind from even our own church that we could view as "extra crap." No church is perfect.
So for you, do you see anything in your own church that just runs straight to the front of your mind as something that maybe is unnecessary? Or some area that is getting too much attention that perhaps shouldn't be so highly elevated?
What's the extra crap that you'd get rid of?
