“Busyness blurs ministry vision.”
Craig Groeschel
The natural instinct of a ministry leader is to add more. More ministries, more information, more outlets, more processes. But always adding more doesn’t help a plant grow. To be healthy, a plant must be pruned.
When we’ve added to the point that none of our current ministries are extremely effective, each ministry is sucking nutrients without getting enough.
It seems counter-intuitive, but the reason for cutting back is to make things healthy.
Ministry leaders may find it easy to think about the “too much” going on around us. But we practically hyperventilate when it comes to the practical steps of cutting a ministry off from the vine.
Pruning is never easy, especially at first. But the benefits are amazing.
If you want to move forward, get clarity on your vision, gain focus on what you want to accomplish, and then cut back other stuff.
The 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic is allowing non-essentials to surface. What can you prune back? What will you not do when this is all said and done?
Jim Collins is famous for saying: the good can kill the great. The church has a knack for still answering questions people were asking twenty years ago. As a result, there isn’t much time for the great thing now.
I like the questions Craig Groeschel included in his book, It: How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It:
- If you had to remove one part of your ministry today, what would it be?
- What few ministries are necessary to fulfill your vision?
- What can we be the best in the world at?
Now is the time to start taking action and begin thinking about what and how you will prune your ministry.