4 Remember ... The Power Of Simplicity

Albert Einstein once said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible but not simpler.” I agree. However, I also have to acknowledge that church ministry isn’t complicated but it is complex. And that complexity must be understood by those who are in charge. At the same time the complexity must be expressed in simple terms for people to understand.
This interplay between the actual complexity of the church and simplicity of explanation must be mastered. So in a simple terms as I can find I want to explain how to master this.
A healthy church has a balance of all the necessary elements of church life. Resources of time and money must not be overinvested in some elements to the expense of others. I want you to get your hands on the Church Health version of The Ministry ToolBox. I wrote an introductory book for that which is included in the package. It will help you understand the balance. The software itself will also help you measure your church situation. Using a simple survey of as many church participants as possible and then inputting the results and reading the reports will do more for you to understand the current health of your church than anything else of which I am aware. You can get a copy of this survey and a sample of the report for free by simply asking. But you won’t know what the results will be in your own church until you take the survey. I have yet to find a church leader who wasn’t surprised by the survey results for their local church. The greater the church leaders think they understand the church the bigger the surprises.
Now let me kick you around a little bit. If this boot to the backside doesn’t fit you then please disregard me for a paragraph here. I can just feel some readers saying to themselves, “I get it. The whole purpose in this book is just to get me to buy something else.” No. The whole purpose in this book is to point you to resources that will help you develop power as a leader in a local church or ministry. And that is going to cost you. It is going to cost you time. That is your most important commodity. And it is going to cost you money. That is your less important but essential commodity. And I know what scarcity of money is. I have been there. But the lack of money is never a good excuse. You need to buy what you need to buy. I am telling you that if you are in a church or hoping to start a church you need what The Ministry ToolBox provides. The Church Health version of The Ministry ToolBox is the least expensive. As you progress, there is an expanding circle of data and power in The ToolBox. You can upgrade one step at a time. If you are hesitating to lay down a couple hundred dollars to fix things, then what are you willing to invest? Since your time is your most valuable commodity you would be a fool to try to replicate the power of The Ministry ToolBox for use in one church only. Well over a million of dollars has been invested to create the product. You get access to it for a few hundred dollars because thousands of others have purchased it and used it profitably. It may be that you end up investing in some other resource. That is going to cost you as well. However, there is nothing like The ToolBox. ToolBox thinking carefully integrates ministry concepts, management philosophy and time management tools. Since you are serious about leading, invest in yourself and buy the product personally if it will create too much hassle to ask the church to make the purchase. The ToolBox will help you personally develop your ministry acumen. And as always, if I don’t deliver on my promise here, I will give you your money back. Now I want to get back on track.
The emphasis in this chapter is not on complexity. It is on simplicity. I want to teach you how to engage the right people in your quest for church health.
You will never be able to engage everyone as much as you might wish. You will not find a group of people who are completely sold out to serving Jesus. And you will never find a group of people who agree with you 100% on how that service works out best. But when you use the right techniques you can identify a number of people who will grow towards a life of loving service for the Master and do it on your team.
Since everyone has the much longer chirp list than their change list you have to be careful. You can sit in the coffee shop with people who will track along with you as you explain your vision for a healthier church. You might naively believe because they are nodding their heads and even chiming in with additional compatible information that their agreement with you is an indication they want to be involved. Maybe yes. Maybe no. Maybe they are just in the habit of chirping.
There are two implied questions people always ask when they are considering moving things from their chirp list to their change list. These questions may not be articulated in spoken words. But you must help them address the questions.
Can I do this?
Individuals need to know that it is possible for them to change. A person might feel the need for change and still not believe they are capable of that change. A person might believe the change is important for others but not so important for their personal life.
The question, “Can I do this?” includes the dimension of ability. It stands to reason that if you are asking someone to get involved in doing something they have never done before, they need to know whether or not they have the ability. If they have never done it before, by definition, they don’t have the ability. Therefore, it is your responsibility in recruiting to explain exactly how the individual will gain the new abilities required. The main component of ability is the willingness to learn. From an ability perspective, given enough information, personal coaching and opportunity for sufficient practice almost anyone can do almost anything you might ask them to do.
The question, “Can I do this?” includes the dimension of readiness. Sometimes there is a lack of readiness because of other life pressures. Other plans that are already in progress get in the way. Generally speaking, most of these readiness issues could be set aside if the desire and urgency were at a sufficient pitch. There might also be some hidden issues of readiness. Individuals with secret sins will keep their sins secret until they are ready to repent. Such an individual will also invent other objections to keep from getting involved. If you answer all the objections this kind of person will think of another objection. What you really have to answer is an entirely different question.
Will it be worth it?
The other implied question requires a rather subjective answer. Will it be worth it? Clearly, if you are asking the person to get involved in something, you think the answer is a resounding, “Yes”. You have to explain why. Everyone has the default option to put self-interest above altruism. Curiously, one of the ultimate fulfillments for sel- interest is altruism. An individual is unlikely to help you because you need help. The individual is likely to help you because they feel the need for, or enjoy the results of, helping people like yourself. Make your appeal with this in mind.
This question raises the issue of risk. There is always a possibility that something won’t work out. Life never turns out quite the way you expect it to. Some people live life feeling cheated by this truth. Far better to accept it and take some risks. Most respected leaders after many years of leading when asked, “If you had life to live over would you take on more or less risk?” give a resounding answer. They would definitely risk more and do it earlier in their lives. They have come to the realization that nothing good happens without an element of risk. The greatest risk that life affords is that you will never take the risks you should.
Those two questions represent two elements of simplicity. They need to be seen as a pair. As you seek to move other people forward you must always address this pair of questions.
There are other ways that you can make things simple for people and for yourself for that matter.
Most of the time people think in a circle. They keep asking the same questions. And they keep being stumped trying to find the answers. This is a very frustrating experience. Perhaps the most frustrating question of all is the question, “Why?” As soon as you ask that question you are opening yourself up to its most common answer, “I don’t know why.” So even though we all have an unending series of why questions it is not productive to fish in that pond too often. All you will end up doing most of the time is think in a circle. Ask the question. Get the answer. Re ask the question. And get the same answer. That is a very frustrating approach to life. To keep life simple don’t get caught in that game. To help others keep life simple encourage them to quit playing that game. If they don’t, before they know it time will expire and the game will be over.
Thinking mostly consists of asking questions and then supplying answers. Bad thinking consists of asking questions and only looking inside for answers. Keep life simple by refusing to allow yourself to do bad thinking. Ask others for perspective. Study. Read. Watch. You have to read to lead. Those words rhyme nicely. I hope they bounce for you. Expand your definition of read to include all of the things that one can do to take on more information. If you are not a reader it will be difficult for you to become a leader. One study of CEOs of major corporations found that the average CEO reads one book a week. Now since you recognize that thinking consists mostly of asking questions and then supplying answers, you should be asking yourself the question, “Which came first the CEO status or the books?” And your answer to that question should be immediate and fairly obvious. You will not complicate your life by minimizing bad thinking. Many people think they will complicate their lives if they do anything but bad thinking. Remember, bad thinking is only looking inside for answers. You must feed your mind so that when you look inside there are better answers. God gave the best set of answers in the Bible. You had better use that as your primary text book. Get reading!
Since thinking consists mostly of asking questions and then supplying answers, it follows that better thinking involves getting better answers by asking better questions. Develope the skill of finding the better question. This will simplify your life and provide great power. There is an amazing power in an incisive good question because it points you in the direction of better answers.
The integration of the foregoing concepts will lead you to asking different questions. You might start out with a question, “Why?” And get the inevitable, “I don’t know why” answer. Perhaps you have heard the suggestion that one of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Isn’t it equally insane to go back and simply ask, “Why?” one more time? It would be much more reasonable for you to find a better question. “Is it possible to answer this why question?” “Does the Bible answer this why question for me?” “Who should I consult to find an answer to this why question?” “Since I don’t have time for that question just now, when will I schedule my thinking time to do research to find the answer?”
One of the versions of the why question is, “Why me? Why now?” Generally speaking, those questions are going to take you into a black hole where there are no answers. You are not so special that the cosmos is picking on you. Really. Would you rather some ubiquitous fate choose someone else on which to inflict this experience? Or would you rather have experienced this event at an earlier time? Or perhaps might tomorrow be a better day? It might be just as valuable for you to ask, “Why not me?” And “Why not now?” But the best thing is not to waste your pain and learn what you can from it. Ask, “What are the life lessons I can learn from this that God is in whole hearted agreement with?” God is not picking on you; He is supplying or allowing what you need to make you better.
Simple questions that get at the heart of the matter are extremely powerful. You must remember the power of simplicity every day. That requires that you become a student of the right kind of questions. The right kind of question always leads to action. Every time you get the answer to a question you are bound to uncover at least three more questions. So this is what you must do. You must control the direction of the questioning so that it leads to appropriate action.
The leader who takes things forward must point the way forward for others. When people are not leading they are attempting to look in all directions at once instead of simply looking ahead. The very best way to encourage a group of people or an individual to look forward is to ask questions that generate next actions. We are always in a mess. There will be an unending number of commentators who wish to describe how we got into this mess. There is a place for analysis as long as it does not lead to paralysis. The question an effective leader always asks is in the category of this question, “What are we going to do now?” Learn to be the leader to take things forward by asking questions that always track out a series of action steps.
There is one more power of simplicity issue I want to help you with. It is extremely useful as you are seeking to work with an individual or group to package items in groups of three . This is not a hard and fast rule but it is a useful configuration. For some reason, people seem to be able to anticipate remembering or acting upon a list of three things. Getting anything done will take many more than three steps as a general rule. However, you will profit greatly by developing the next three steps and promoting them to others.
In the life of the church this principle applies. Teach your church to take on three projects at a time. Ask people to apply your teaching in three different ways in a given week. Package things in groups of three . This doesn’t actually create simplicity. But it does create hope that things are simple enough to be acted upon. Once the list gets longer than three items anxiety and hopelessness rise. You are much better off to get three things done even though you could identify 10 important actions. With a list of 10 things to look at you will have a hard time getting people to take on even the first action.
The best thing that you can do all the time is to identify the three highest impact actions out of your list of 10 and dwell on those. In a slightly different vein, it is nearly useless to give people a long list of resources. They don’t need you for that. They simply can do a Google search and find a list. What they need your leadership for is to pick the three highest impact resources that you recommend.
You can keep things simple with people if you ask them to pay attention to three words. You might ask people to read three paragraphs, or three chapters or even three books. It all depends on the context but grouping things in three s makes things simple.
The chances of you getting an individual to take on new activities in their life rise greatly if you limit your expectations to three things at a time. You can start the process of thinking in three s with someone as young as three years of age. When the list is longer than three just select the three most important things. Remember simplicity. Functionally, people count like this 1, 2, 3, many. Many is a confusing number that is usually interpreted as too many. If people think in terms of too many they will probably stay passive and you will not engage them.
Use the power of simplicity as often as possible and you will see your effectiveness rise.