Podcast Episode #288
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Churches often find themselves with ministries that no longer fit their needs or the needs of those in the community. But pastors often struggle to eliminate them. Today, we discuss how to kill ineffective ministries to allow your church to be more efficient with time and money in ministry.
Some highlights from today’s episode include:
- Most of our churches are too busy, and many have programs or ministries which are no longer effective.
- Many times we allow ministries to persist because we have a false perception of their effectiveness.
- Most ineffective ministries will die naturally if leadership doesn’t support them.
- Do the ministries of your church align with your church’s vision and mission?
- Churches need to get honest about effectiveness when it comes to budgeting funds for a ministry.
- When a ministry is eliminated, the leaders of that ministry often feel devalued.
- Most church ministries are started out of chaos without a strategic plan for effectiveness.
- The challenge in ministry is to have a clear vision and stick with it.
The seven steps to killing a ministry or church program which we discuss are:
- Count the cost
- Let it die naturally
- Demonstrate how it is not aligned
- Have an honest discussion with a key leader of the ministry
- Minimize funding
- Find other places for the ministry leaders to serve
- Have clearly established criteria on the front end
Episode Sponsors
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Feedback
If you have a question you would like answered on the show, fill out the form on the podcast page here at ThomRainer.com. If we use your question, you’ll receive a free copy of Who Moved My Pulpit?
I’m not sure that “die naturally” is always a healthy leadership move. My experience is that most people with any sense of “what’s actually going on” are usually waiting for someone to tell the truth and put something to bed rather than continuing to allow it to survive on life support. It breeds resentment with other ministry leaders who need those resources to keep growing ministries strong and also distracts from time and talent with other strong leaders in the congregation. I write this as one who is new to this congregation and am experiencing first-hand what quantity over quality feels and looks like.
Chris, from the perspective of my favorite Religious Ed professor in seminary, a program dying naturally means it is at the end of its life cycle and does not need to be resuscitated or preserved. A wise leader will know how to handle the closer of such a program or ministry. The greatest issue is the emotional attachment some church members may have to the program or ministry that is no longer viable. The advice we were given as a new pastor to a new field was to let the dying programs and ministries die or be accused of killing it when it does eventually fail if we try to revive it.
One of my seminary professors compared certain programs to a stump in the middle of a field. You want to remove it, but its roots are too deep. So what you do? Just plow around it! Over time the “stump” will rot to the point where it can be uprooted easily.
After a number of articles potentially labelling the visionaries and truth-tellers among the elders and church members as being bullies and cartels, it’s good to finally have a post that encourages replacing the pastor!
That’s what you took from this article? Seriously?