7. Keep it Simple

It is simple.
At least that is what Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger concluded in their book, “Simple Church.” They contend that we struggle as congregations because we make things too complicated. We try to do too many things. We wander in too many directions, and we have trouble keeping our focus.
I suspect they are right. Over the years, we have tried to be many different things in our society. We once thought we were the ones to start the hospitals and colleges across the land. At another time, we initiated the pre-schools, day cares, and Parents’ Day out programs. We went through a phase of thinking we were responsible for building the recreation buildings on behalf of the communities that surround us. Early in the 20th Century, we considered ourselves the social gathering spot where folks could get together and catch up on the news in town. Soon after that, we thought our task was to offer the place where people could get together and salute the flag and talk of patriotism.
And that is just a partial list of the phases we have gone through in the United States. It seems that the Church is constantly tinkering with its mission as we try to figure out what we offer the world. Looking back at the list, we have done much good for our society. None of those phases were bad when they started because they started as an outgrowth of our mission. In several cases, though, they quickly became our mission and we took our identity out of their success rather than measuring their success by how they helped us accomplish our mission.
Rainer and Geiger call us back to a simpler approach. They suggest that all we really need to do is 1) Know, believe, articulate, and live out our mission, 2) Implement a step by step plan for accomplishing the mission, 3) Align all of our resources toward carrying out that plan, and 4) maintain focus to the point of choosing not to do many of the good things that are not helping us accomplish our mission. Each part of this process is vital to the success of the others.
Our mission is simple. Though we spend many hours writing mission statements and trying to use just the right words, all we really need to do is go back to our Book of Discipline. It describes our mission as “making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.“ Our mission is not to have the nicest building, not to take in the most money, not to keep church members happy, and it is certainly not to keep the doors open until we die. Rather, our mission is to seek out those who don’t know the love of Christ, offer them this life-giving love, help them mature in the faith, and send them forth offer that love in the world.
Our process of implementation is simple. It often doesn’t seem like it because we try to do so many things. However, our process doesn’t have to be complicated. Some have said it is Know God, Love God, Serve God. Others would add some connecting steps between those three. However, we might express it, though, we simply need to know the steps and be sure we connect them to one another. We should keep asking, “where does worship fit in the process,” “what are we doing to help people mature in the faith,” “what opportunities are we giving for people to reach out to others in the community?”
Alignment is simple. Every employee and every volunteer should know her or his role in carrying out the process. As long as each person knows that they are helping the congregation carry out its mission in a specific way, he or she can be more effective. Do we offer Parents’ Day Out? The answer doesn’t lie so much in whether the community would benefit from it as much as it lies in how it helps the church make disciples for the transformation of the world.
Focus is simple, but hard. Over the years many of our congregations have begun projects that are worthwhile and sometimes profitable. They may have helped accomplish the mission when they started, but more recently they have simply become something we always do. Focusing requires us to have the courage to quit doing them. Is that fall sale helping us make disciples, or is it simply the project that helps us pay the bills? Is the day care program bringing new people into the church, or is it simply draining the energy of those who might be able to focus on something else. If we are going to get back to simplicity, we have to know what God calls us to do and be and what God is not calling us to do and be.
Keep it simple. Make Disciples. Nourish their growth. Send them out to transform the world.