Your church is not the entire, universal church of Jesus Christ. It just isn’t. It’s an expression of the capital C church. It’s a local embodiment of the Church. But it isn’t THE church. It’s A church. Maybe Jesus doesn’t expect you do absolutely everything HIS church will do because HIS church is bigger than YOUR church.

When you’re a church leader, you feel a lot of pressure.

Almost every leader feels the pressure to do more when the key to effectively accomplishing your mission is often doing less and doing it well.

As Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger argued a decade ago in Simple Church, the most effective churches these days are often the churches that do a few things and do them well. That’s still very true today.

So how do you resist the constant pressure to add more programs, especially when those programs seem to be programs that won’t lead the church forward?

First, realize that much of the pressure you feel is not external, it’s internal. It’s a pressure I felt for years, until one day it vaporized.

So much of my desire to add programs and my guilt over not doing it was based on a false assumption I held and many leaders hold.

Let me explain.

A key source of that pressure is that you’re leading a church. 

Your church is on a mission. Quite literally, it’s on a mission from God.

And the terms of that mission are written within the scriptures, a document everyone who attends your church (and even those who don’t) can read anytime they want. And a document you hopefully read daily.

As a result, many people have opinions on what your church should be doing or shouldn’t be doing.

And even as you read the scripture, you probably find yourself thinking we should do more of X, or I believe that we need to introduce Y so we can be more faithful to the church’s mission.

You don’t need anyone to suggest new ministries because you feel enough pressure to generate them all by yourself.

Most local church leaders feel a deep pressure to do everything they read about in the Bible in their church. After all, you lead a church.

But should you?

You shouldn’t. And here’s why.

How The Pressure Mounts

I lived with that tension and pressure for about a decade. Over time, as our church grew, I assumed we had to add more programs so we could be faithful to our calling.

You feel the pressure to do more as you read the Bible and see the need around you. And even if you didn’t or said nothing (which most leaders would never do), often the program ideas and ministries get suggested by people as you grow:

The church needs to care for the poor… we should start a food bank.

There are a lot of bikers in town… who’s going to reach them?

What are we going to do for moms of pre-schoolers?

We need more services with different music/teaching approaches to reach more people.

The needs in Asia are so great… why isn’t our church doing anything about it?

As a result, most churches by default start doing everything they can to meet every need they see around them. After all, you’re the church. You should do that!

But in the process of doing everything for everyone, a few things happen:

You end up doing nothing well.

Your ministry becomes a maze with no sequence, no progression and end in mind for helping someone grow in their relationship with each other.

The ministries and programs end up competing for time, energy and money.

People are out 5-7 nights a week, and ultimately some people burn out, including you.

When you try to be everything to everyone, you usually end up being nothing to anyone.

Read More