Contact:

josh@joshhhunt.com

575.650.4564

Accomplishing more by doing less.

When we think of change, we normally think of doing more. We think of adding. Adding programs, adding ministries, adding work. I think it was Bill Hybels who said, “We only want three things from our people. More. More. More.” Sometimes, we need to say to people, “We’re going to do less. We’re going to stop doing some things.” I will promise you for many of your people, it would be music to their ears.

We tend to equate spirituality with busyness. We tend to confuse activity and effectiveness. Doing more does not always lead to more effectiveness. Sometimes, it leads to less. I love what Andy Stanley says, “Less is more.” Indeed.

Speaking of Andy Stanley…

I am thinking of the church now whose pastor decided it would be a great idea to start a North Point-style children’s church. A key component of the way North Point is reaching people is through a Nickelodeon-style, Disney-class children’s church every week. There are puppets and videos and lighting and smoke and mirrors. It is awesome! Kids love it.

I have heard Andy say that if you don’t want to come to his church never bring your children one time. If you do, they will never let you forget it. They will beg and nag and insist that the family goes back. It is just that good. And, it is good church growth thinking. Church growth 101 states, “You use the felt needs of the culture to reach out to people.” Bill Hybels says that even unchurched people will go to church if their kids want to attend.

North Point’s stated vision is to be a church unchurched people want to attend. There is no place where this is more true than in their children’s ministry.

The pastor I’m thinking of decided it would be a cool idea to start a children’s church like this at his church. It is a large church and they have the resources to pull it off with excellence. Only one problem. This church also does Sunday School for children with excellence. North Point doesn't. They do Awana with excellence. North Point doesn’t. They do children’s choirs with excellence. North Point doesn’t. I love this:

At North Point we have relentlessly pursued simplicity. A lot of churches are simply doing too much, and if you interview their staffs they will confirm this. While they are trying to reach the world, they are losing their own communities. And instead of being strong somewhere, they are weak everywhere.

Many churches don’t think this way. They think, “More, more, more.” The result is their people are tired, and their programs are not done with the excellence with which they could be done.

This is, of course, the message of the excellent book, Simple Church.

Conversely, complex churches are struggling and anemic. Churches without a process or with a complicated process for making disciples are floundering. As a whole, cluttered and complex churches are not alive. Our research shows that these churches are not growing. Unfortunately, the over-programmed and busy church is the norm. The simple church is the exception, yet our research shows that should not be the case.

This problem is not unique to churches. It is the human condition. It is true of our lives individually, and it is true of almost any organization you can imagine. Business guru Jim Collins says it is a huge problem in businesses:

Most of us lead busy, but undisciplined lives. We have ever-expanding “to do” lists, trying to build momentum by doing, doing, doing—and doing more. And it rarely works. Those who build the good-to-great companies, however, made as much use of “stop doing” lists as the “to do” lists. They displayed a remarkable amount of discipline to unplug all sorts of extraneous junk.

John Maxwell is another leader that advocates focus. He teaches that in addition to a to-do list we ought to keep a don’t-do list. Both individually, and as a church, we should regularly evaluate what we are doing and trim things from our busy schedules. Change is not always about adding more, it is sometimes about doing less.

Most people are generalists. They know a lot about a lot of things. However, most successful individuals are highly focused. The old proverb is true: If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.

My parents taught me an important principle related to this. Oftentimes, as we were heading home, I would ask that we stop by and get a burger. My parents were quite frugal with their money and would usually deny my request. My mom would say something like, “We could save that money and give to missions.”

“Oh mom, we can give money to missions and get a burger.”

Here is the nugget: “The dollar we spend on a burger we cannot also give to missions. You can only spend a dollar once.”

You can only spend a dollar once. And you can only spend an hour once. We cannot do the things that would get us the results we want if we are busy doing the things that are not getting the results we want. Busyness is not the same as effectiveness. Often, success is about what we don’t do as much as about what we do.