Routines, Busyness, and Change

I have routines. You have routines. We all have routines.

Whether it’s the way we start our days, commute to work, go to bed, or anything in between, we all have a certain way of doing things. In fact, a recent book on this topic outlined the fact that geniuses—both ancient and modern—tend to live and die by their routines.

Charles Dickens took three-hour walks every afternoon, Mozart had a regimented daily schedule, and Charles Schultz, creator of nearly eighteen thousand Peanuts comic strips, had a ham sandwich and glass of milk almost every day.

So yes, we all have routines. But why? Is it superstition? Laziness? Why is it that we do things the way that we do?

Routines exist because they are the best, most effective, and efficient way to do the things that need to get done. Well, at least, at one point in time they were the best. At one point in time they were the most efficient. And at one point in time we saw first hand just how effective they were.

The same is true for the church. At one point in time, those programs made sense, but do they still today?

When’s the last time you evaluated them? Or have they just become routine? How much of your church is driven by mottos like, “Well that’s the way we’ve always done it,” or, “Don’t rock the boat,” or “What would dear sister Sally do if you changed things? Her deceased husband basically built this church.”

Change or die.

This is the decision you’ll have to make if you continue to let routines from yesteryear run your church.

The majority of churches in the West are either declining or growing at a pace that’s slower than the community they’re located in. In other words, they’re losing ground. Church has become a litany of activities and busyness. It’s become one program or one thing after another. And there’s no intentionality or movement forward in a direction that demonstrates faithfulness with what God has entrusted that church.

The solution isn’t to look down the street and copy the nearby mega-church. Nor is it to blow everything up and start from scratch. And by all means, staying the same is not an option either. There is no one silver bullet to turning around a dying church or continuing the growth of a healthy one. It takes several little improvements in different areas to add up to growth. And that’s precisely what this book is about.

In No Silver Bullets, Daniel will show you how to shift your church in a Great Commission and Great Commandment direction.

He’ll show you how to make small changes that will get you out of the very routines that are preventing your church from fulfilling it’s God given vision. And he’ll do this by helping you root it into the very fabric of your church—your discipleship pathway.

God has given you talents and God has given the body of Christ talents. So don’t be like a hamster on a spinning wheel, where you are just going around and around without any productive action. Take what God has given you, and learn from what God has given Daniel, and together make something beautiful.

Quite frankly, I’ve seen many churches who have this wide, broad, and deep list of activities.

And their people are busy. Something is always going on during the day and in the evenings. They’re constantly doing things. And they go on and on. But then you look at their impact in the community, and many have never even heard of them. Very few people are being reached for Christ. They simply don’t have a clear direction. They think that busyness is equivalent to obedience. But busyness without the right direction is poor stewardship.

So gather your leadership team together and work through the small shifts that are outlined in this book. Stop producing consumers and start releasing disciple makers. Your church and your neighborhood won’t be the same without it. So my prayer is that as you read this book, you would become a better steward of that which God has given you.

Thom S. Rainer
President
LifeWay Christian Resources

This article is the foreword to No Silver Bullets, by Daniel Im.