Ministry Alignment or Entanglement?

American churches often suffer from over programming, or what I call ‘Ministry Entanglement’. It is typical to walk into a church on a Sunday morning and have three to four things to choose from, all simultaneously happening at once. We are required or encouraged to attend a corporate worship service, serve somewhere, attend a class, check out this orientation and that grief share group. How do people get it all done? Unless cloning becomes a reality and viable moral option, the answer is “they don’t”. Sub conscientiously, the average attendee is asking themselves, ‘What do they want really me to do?”….they’re looking for a clear road map….. and all we give them as leaders is a bunch of twisted arrows.

Ministry entanglement doesn’t happen overnight, but over a period of time, much like a messy garage filled with unorganized essentials, deferred decisions and stuff you no longer need. Church leaders are not proud of their over filled garage of programs, nor do they strategically set out to create a web of programs that dilute communications, sabotage budgets, over burden facilities, and take up parking spaces that otherwise should be reserved for new guests and the lost.

The question is ….. “Can’t we approach ministry programs with both the heart as well as head?”. There ARE ways to untangle the web and achieve ministry alignment without causing a church split. And there ARE new leadership rules that can be implemented so the garage doesn’t just fill up again. And there IS purpose and power of a ‘simple church’ model. The real question is….Do we want to fight for it?

Like a messy garage, we don’t necessarily like ministry entanglement, but we certainly do learn to live with it. I would challenge us as leaders to do better with the bride of Christ….better at being good stewards of our money; better at deciding what programs are really important on Sunday morning; better at managing our facilities; better at honoring people with a clear and simple offering when they come: corporately worship, hear the pastor preach, teach the children and youth, and serve the body to support those primary areas. Everything else that is good and right and noble and needed and important will naturally take care of itself through the passions and leadership of the body….not through church supported programs.