I know that in your church all the ministries continue to flourish year after year, decade after decade. Yet those other pastors sometimes wonder what to do with the ministry that Herb or Mabel started in 1973 that is no longer relevant or effective.
Our churches are privileged to minister on a variety of fronts. We do it to meet the needs of the church and those who need to come into a relationship with Jesus. However, in doing so, we must assess the current effectiveness of everything we do. Our methods of accomplishing the mission of the church must always come under close scrutiny on a regular basis or we can delude ourselves into believing that our set of activities is actually effective when it probably isn’t.
Most churches are great at starting ministries and lousy at ending them. Somehow, we have convinced ourselves that ending a ministry is not something spiritual. The ministry had a good reason to start, so it must have a good reason to continue. Never mind the fact that the reason for starting it no longer exists.
Here are some thoughts for your consideration as you stop some ministries to move others forward.
1. Pray first, not last – When heading to the end of a ministry that has served effectively for its time and no longer does, a leader must pray, pray, and pray again. Failing to do this can certainly cause a lot of confusion, pain, and chaos. Don’t pray as a last resort. It is your first resort. It is what will pave the way for the best disruption and the most effective move to a new high-value approach.
two. strong leadership – For ministries to end, the senior pastor of the church must be strong in his own leadership. This does not mean that he should be a dictator. That is, he must have the security and inner strength to chart the course and stand against the inevitable winds of resistance. Confident leadership sometimes eludes leading pastors, but not necessarily. They can have confidence in their call from God to serve their local church. A pastor can rest in confidence that he has prayed and done his homework in anticipation of the ramifications of ending a ministry. The pastor should never assume that just because he says a ministry must end, he will do it without weeping and gnashing of teeth. Strong leadership prepares for all possible outcomes, including the loss of some people who can’t accept change.
3. Culture of Change – Change must happen with the right people in place. The leader must be a continual student of change. The culture of change must be taught, taught, and re-taught at every stage of a church’s life. This is a process of months and years. Pastors who want to move their congregations forward in mission accomplishment will always talk about change and the need for it. To do otherwise will consign the church to carrying the dead weight of ministries that have long since lost their effectiveness. This depletes the church’s ability to focus on those ministries that are of greatest value and impact.
Four. pruning – This is where it really happens. For a plant to grow and flourish, it must be pruned. Dr. Henry Cloud, in his landmark book Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships We All Have to Give Up to Get On, points out that pruning involves cutting off three different types of shoots and branches; dead branches that take up space, diseased branches that are not going to heal and healthy buds or branches that are not the best. Expressed in terms of church ministry, a pastor must ask himself, “Are there ministries in our church that are dead and producing nothing alive? Are there ministries that are sick and unlikely to recover?” Answers ending in pruning may make sense to many people. However, the question “Are there healthy buds that are not the best?” and the potential for pruning them is much more difficult to navigate in the church. The reality is that without cutting off those ministries, the best shoots on the best branches will be hindered in their ability to be as effective for mission as possible. Pruning is painful but it must be done to have the best plant and the best ministry.
5. expecting vs wishing – Dr. Cloud asks the question every leading pastor asks: “What is worth keeping and fixing, and what needs to end?” We all hope that a ministry that has failed can come back. Everybody loves a comeback boy. For those ministries that have emanated from the heart of a valued volunteer and have failed, stalled, or died, coming back is sometimes wishful thinking. Wishing a ministry could be what it was rarely works. Expecting a ministry to be what it was is possible when these nine objective factors from Dr. Cloud are in place:
has. Verifiable participation in a proven change process
b. additional structure
against Monitoring Systems
d. New Experiences and Skills
me. self-sufficient motivation
F. Admission of Need
gram. The presence of support
H. Specialized help
Yo. some success
If all you do is wish for a ministry to revive, you are only prolonging the inevitable: bury it or continue with an anemic church, with strong ministries that are diminished by the flight of the weak. So what are the steps a senior pastor should take when finishing a ministry? Here are some basics.
A. Pray. God birthed the ministry. He can take it home.
B. Talk to key leaders. Don’t be hasty. Be considerate. Take the necessary time so that as many people as possible accompany you in understanding the need to act. Understand that not everyone can make the trip with you. Help everyone involved understand that our message never changes, but our methods of communicating it change all the time.
C. Don’t make a public show of a break from ministry unless it has to be done. Be loud about starting ministries. Keep quiet about their funerals.
D. Focus on the future.
The future is too important to be hampered by ineffective ministries. Some successful ministries of the past have become an obstacle for the future. If it were easy to stop doing those ministries, all churches would do it. But is not. Therefore, it is your role to help lead the church in discontinuing some good things to do better things. Your mission is too important to do otherwise.