Pruning is a verb. It requires action.
Pruning involves cutting away dead or overgrown branches to increase fruitfulness and growth. Reducing the unwanted parts provides room and nutrients to grow more fully. Pruning requires a cut and is not always easy..
Church ministries often need pruning. Programs and ministries rise up for a season, fulfill the need, and grow into a life of their own that no one feels the authority to remove once the need is over. Some churches have numerous ministry programs that people feel obliged to lead without having passion. As a result, we have half-hearted ministries, many of which should be pruned for the sake of growing the overall mission.
Here are ten observations about ministry pruning:
- Pruning isn’t demanded by the thing that needs to be pruned.
- Pruning takes time and requires a decisive act. You can’t sort of prune something.
- Pruning always makes a bit of a mess; it doesn’t look pretty while pruning.
- The payoff from pruning is not always immediate; results often show up in the future.
- Pruning is a risk for the owner, but it must be done.
- Cutting back for a season is okay. You can always prune “for now.”
- Pruning is not rejecting. Pruning is saying a clear and confident “yes” to the main mission.
- Pruning can be painful. We easily become attached. Status quo in a volunteer organization is a tough nut to crack.
- God is the ultimate owner and we are the gardeners.
- We must be in tune with God’s voice to know what should be pruned and when it’s time to prune.
He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. John 15:2
