When it comes to programs and services in the church, the answer to all questions that begin with the phrase, “Well, shouldn’t we at least have…?” is a hearty “Heck, no!”
Of course it seems unreasonable to answer the question without knowing what specific “improvement” is in view, but stick with me for a minute. I concede that a good case can generally be made for any single improvement of this kind. Considered in the abstract, the proposed improvement is a good thing, and would perhaps take relatively little effort. It’s hard to see what harm could come of it, and so it’s very hard to make a case against it—but this is a failure to see the big picture. The problem is threefold.
First, humans have notoriously low sales resistance to anything that involves other people’s work. It’s very easy to sell the idea that we “ought to have” something, but it’s quite another matter to assemble the wherewithal to actually do it—and it’s usually substantially more work than it sounds like, because everything is. In a church with a professional staff governed by a board, a few zealous congregants can often persuade the board to their way of thinking, thereby foisting the necessary work onto the staff. In our church, there’s additional resistance because no one is making a living tending to the needs of the church. All of us have jobs that support our families, and aren’t looking for ways to make our ministry more labor-intensive, especially not for secondary things that “would be nice.” If it’s not primary to our mission, we’re not touching it.
Second, this sort of task tends to travel in packs. First there will be one, which is harmless enough, but then there’s another, then a third, and before you know it, there’s a mountain of such obligations, all of which have to be maintained. Proponents will argue that we can always stop doing a given task, if it becomes onerous, but in reality they always oppose efforts to prune back whatever is presently being done (by other people—see #1!) The net result of these two tendencies is a ratcheting effect: it’s easy enough to start a church bulletin, or newsletter, or phone tree, or nursery, or whatever, but it takes an extraordinary effort of leadership to stop doing those things once you start them. It’s much easier and faster to kill it before it starts.
Finally, this burden of (theoretically low-level) tasks has a way of compromising church leadership. The tasks themselves can usually be handled by some sort of administrative assistant, even a volunteer one. However, once ensconced in the position, the administrative assistant often ends up being a de facto elder simply by virtue of being willing to do a bunch of tasks that, while nonessential to start with, nobody can now imagine living without (see #2)—which is to say that this person has accrued power out of all proportion to his/her qualifications. In the church, directional leadership is reserved to a select group of men meeting specific biblical qualifications. The elders may not abdicate their core functions to a third party who doesn’t meet the qualifications God assigned for those functions, and therefore it’s best not to create perverse incentives that encourage such abdication.
The bottom line is simple. We have work enough and to spare just doing what Jesus gave us to do: make disciples. Things that “would be nice” are a distraction we simply can’t afford, and tend over time to choke out the work Jesus told us to focus on. If you need a demonstration of this fact, you need look no further than the five churches nearest you. I promise you, if you look around, you’ll swiftly find a church that does a dozen such “nice” tasks with real excellence, and hasn’t a clue how to make disciples.
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