People are Being Programmed to Death

Are You Being Programmed To Death At Your Church?

Should There Be Less Ministries?

Will Your Church Members Get More From Their Worship Experience When Churches Decide To Become More Effective in Understanding the True Meaning of Fellowship?

Comments By Bill Easum

One of the new realities of new, thriving churches is the less they do the more they grow. Sounds strange, doesn’t it. Here’s what I mean. I’m seeing more and more new, thriving churches doing only a hand full of ministries, usually limited to worship, small groups, and children and youth worship, and missions- and nothing more. Thus, less is more.

And the converse is true. I see more and more declining churches with a full calendar of events. The goal of many pastors seems to be “if I can get new people involved in something, I’ve got them.” So, they heap one program on top of another in hopes of involving more people. Whereas this method worked when the church was more at the center of society, nothing now could be farther from the truth. All over-programming does today is split up families one more time as if society doesn’t do that enough.

So why not start cancelling all of the programs you have to annually prop up by begging people to attend? Then look over all of your programs and ask “Which ones really contribute to the spiritual or numerical growth of our church? And then discontinue all of those that do not contribute.

You see one of the mistakes most churches make is they tie their new people up in some many church activities that within a couple of years they don’t have any unchurched friends anymore. Instead of bringing people to church two or three times a week, train them to spend time with their unchurched friends and let them see what it means to be a Christian. You’ll see a marked improvement in the number of new people showing up.