A number of years ago I mailed a publication to a couple of hundred bivocational ministers and judicatory leaders. That ended when I began sending a monthly e-newsletter to hundreds of bivocational ministers and others around the world. The e-newsletter was quicker to publish and send and less costly. It allowed me to touch far more persons interested in this ministry that the quarterly paper I was mailing out. A few years ago I found it was taking a lot of my time to keep up with the e-mail address changes that my recipients had. I had began writing this blog, so I made the decision to replace that monthly e-newsletter with blog posts that I could do 4-5 days a week. I had no real way of knowing how many people actually read the e-newsletter, and this way people could either follow the blog or not. Far fewer follow the blog than received the e-newsletter which leads me to believe that a lot of the time I spent trying to keep up with address changes was not time well spent.
During all these transitions I also maintained a website. In recent years it became more difficult to keep that site current, especially with the time I spent writing my blog posts. Even though the site did not generate enough book sales to pay for itself, I still struggled with closing the site. This year I finally pulled the plug on the site and bivocationalministries.com went off line this week.
I have to admit I struggled to make the decision to do that. For some reason I really felt it was important to have that site, but at the same time I recognize that things change. It can be a challenge some weeks to write 4-5 posts for this blog. It became an even greater challenge to put fresh material on the website when I was committed to posting on this site. Without fresh material a web site soon stops attracting people. I believe this blog is a far more effective tool to help church leaders and bivocational ministers than the web site so I am convinced I made the right decision to let it go.
Isn't that the struggle we often have in our churches? We've done something for so long that used to be much more effective than it is today but we find it difficult to let it go when it stops being effective. I've often told small church leaders that their churches will enjoy a much more productive ministry when they realize they can accomplish more by doing less. Yet, we often find it difficult to let go of some of those things that have become more of a hindrance that a help. In some cases those sacred cows have become idols that must be preserved and honored even if doing so limits our ministries.
Change is not easy. Letting go is not easy. But...neither is being stuck. Our churches need to take a serious look at everything they are doing and ask the tough questions. Are these things still producing the results they once produced? If we never did this again, would it make any real difference in the life of our church? If Jesus came back today would we want him finding us doing these things? Is what we are doing today worth the life of the Son of God?
These are tough questions, but they are important questions churches need to be asking. We often forget that most of the things we are doing today once replaced something else that was no longer working. Maybe it's time the replacements are replaced with something that will be more effective in the 21st century.
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