Types of imbalance

Church of Chaos (not efficient) 

• Things take longer, and its quite possible that staff is struggling to keep up with all of the things that need to get done. Not because there are too many things, but because each thing is taking too long. 
• Everything is running inefficiently. 

Church of Improvement

• Scale demands efficiency. 
  • And so, the process to make things efficient begins.
• Things like facilities, communications, productions, and even some high level ministry programs like small groups or weekends start finding a groove.

Obviously with all these improvements, we want more efficiency.

The Church of Efficiency

Then one day, you find yourself here. 

• Efficient. Streamlined. High performance,  but soulless.
• The joy just isn't there any more. 
  • What happened?

Efficiency happened. 

The Balanced Church

• The role of efficiency in the church is to allow inefficiency to be used well. 
• When inefficiency is removed all together, all the aspects of ministry that can't be streamlined suffer.
• The quest for efficiency is centered around the mission of the church. 
  • I believe that if you are regularly rushing through a counseling appointment or a shepherding opportunity for the sake of maximizing time, you are minimizing your impact. 

How to identify a culture that has overvalued efficiency:

• Conversations are rushed. 
  • Relationships don't have the time to breath that they need to. 
• We don't feel comfortable being still and listening to the spirit. 
  • Relationships are inefficient. Hospital visits take time. 
  • Ministry doesn't always go according to the script, and rarely can it be broken into the 30 minute calendar slots we allocate for it. 

Two values I hold in high regard for our team.

• Take as much work off our ministry teams as we can so they can focus on the ministry they have been called to.
• Serve our ministry teams with joy.

What does that mean for our team?

• It means that we are willing to go out of our way if a helps free up our ministry teams, or if it supports them above and beyond their expectations.
• If it doesn’t move forward either of those values, we get it done efficiently.

 We need balance

• Relationships are the context in which significant moments happen. 
• Feedback, personal and professional improvement, encouragement, development, growth, change, and even Biblical correction. 
• They all happen in relationship.

If you or your team are looking for ways to become more efficient as an organization, answer these two questions:

What is our primary ministry focus?
Where does my time get spent each week?

When you see where your time goes, you will know what thinks you need to look at. 

• Identify the areas where a lot of time is being spent, but wouldn't be identified as your primary ministry focus. 
• The size of your team doesn’t matter. There is still value in becoming more efficient at non-missional tasks.

Bottom line:

Relationships are more valuable than completed work. Don’t just keep adding more work at the cost of relationship.