Great use of graphics in the weekly email newsletter for Mission Community Church. Sample below, see the full version here.

“Focus is the key to achieving excellence and making an impact. Each ministry environment should be designed to do no more than one or two things well.” – Andy Stanley

What does this look like? Here’s an example.

A church runs a playgroup. What is the focus for this playgroup?

• To teach the children about Jesus?
• To develop the children’s gross motor skills?
• To provide a place for Christian parents to be encouraged?
• To be a safe place in the neighbourhood for parents and kids to hang out?
• To be a place for Christian parents to develop relationships with other parents?

You might say: “all of the above!”. But let’s face it, you can’t do everything well, and some of these goals contradict each other, or pull resources in multiple directions. A group that is inwardly focussed (supporting Christian parents) is going to look different to a group that has an evangelistic focus.

Both are worthy – but you need to focus on one or the other, or be willing to settle for doing neither well.

Narrowing the focus is helpful for (at least) two other reasons.

1. It clarifies what resources are needed.

For example:

• If the playgroup wants to focus on teaching kids, you need volunteers who can teach the kids.
• If the playgroup wants to focus on church parents building relationships with other parents, you need to have church parents in regular attendance.

2. It clarifies ‘the win’. 

As Andy Stanley explains:

“It is impossible to know if you are making progress if you are not clear about your destination. This means examining each and every event and program and asking the question, When all is said and done, what is it we want to look back on and celebrate?”

If developing relationships is the focus for the group, but the church parents are so busy setting up, teaching, preparing morning tea, etc. that they aren’t able to chat with anyone and build relationships – then the playgroup would ultimately be a failure.

On the flip side, if relationships are built, the ministry could be deemed successful – regardless of numbers, or the skills the kids acquired, or how diverse the activities were, or how tasty morning tea was.

I think it’s refreshing to have a narrow focus because the people involved in the clear ministry know what they’re working towards, what’s important, what can be dropped, how to pray, and on what basis they will celebrate and give thanks to God at the end of the year/event.

See also: Activity isn’t (necessarily) progress.

From Andy Stanley in ‘7 Practices of Effective Ministry‘:

“The tendency in business, or in church work for that matter, is to mistake activity for progress. We think that just because people are busy and doing a lot of stuff that we are being successful. The fact of the matter is, if all that activity isn’t taking you where you want to go, then it’s just wasted time.”

I’m sure you don’t want to waste your time.

So, are your ministries, events and gatherings taking people to where you want them to go?

This question is what prompted the REVEAL survey:

“Are all the things that we do here at Willow Creek that these people so generously support really helping them become fully devoted followers of Christ— which is our mission—or are we just giving them a nice place to go to church?”

Let’s face it, churches can have suites of ministries that rival the programming at the Olympic games. But these (usually very) good things, can be implemented in an ad hoc manner, without clear direction, purpose or means of evaluation.

So, how do you assess your church’s activities to know if they really are helping people to progress, or are just an extra ingredient in the pot of well-intentioned but  directionless activity?