Outreach or Busywork - How to Tell the Difference?

In this episode of the Church Talk podcast, hosts Jason Allison and Rob Paterson discuss the balance between church activities and meaningful outreach. They explore the concepts of faithfulness, fruitfulness, and flourishing in ministry, emphasizing the importance of evaluating church programs and aligning them with the church's vision and values. The conversation highlights the need for churches to prune ineffective activities to focus on what truly matters, ultimately encouraging leaders to abide in Christ for true growth and effectiveness.

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Transcript

Jason Allison (00:00)
Welcome, everybody, to the Church Talk podcast with Rob and Jason. We are so glad that you joined us today. Rob, man, how are doing? The sun came out today and I was excited. You know, that's just the way I am. But, you know, for once, because, man, a couple of weeks ago, I was in eastern Pennsylvania the weekend before that big storm hit and literally.

decided to drive home so that I didn't have to wait for them to cancel my flight and I get stuck in Philadelphia. So, you know, seeing the sun for even a brief few moments is just lightened to my spirit.

Rob Paterson (00:37)
Yeah, even as you're saying that though, you know, just this unseasonably warm weather, I think here in a couple days where we live, it's supposed to be, you know, back up in the mid fifties for one day before it cools off again for however many days. But you know, you and I were traveling for a week where it was, it kind of peeked into the fifties and maybe even hit touch 60 for a day or two.

And, uh, you know, when that happens in like February or even early March, uh, which is kind of what we're barreling toward here. Um, it's so funny that it gives us all these unrealistic expectations, right? We started to be like, yes, it's spring. It's like, it's not spring yet. There's still going to be snow. It's going to be, it's going to be lots of awful weather between now and spring. So just like, enjoy sort of the foreshadowing, the moment of hope.

Jason Allison (01:23)
Yes.

Rob Paterson (01:29)
Um, although Jason, would say that, uh, around

our house, Bethany and I have been cleaning some things we've been organizing. We've just been like getting things dialed in and a little bit more in order than they've been in really years. And it's just causing some peace in our life. Like to get to do that, like, you know, the thing you don't want to do, you'd rather sit down and watch a show or take a nap, you actually, you know, do two or three of those things. We've been doing those and.

Jason Allison (01:48)
Yeah.

Nice.

Rob Paterson (01:58)
Yeah, it's been feeling good.

Jason Allison (02:00)
I love that. That's that we every so often, you know, we have to go through and do that. And man, it just feels good to check a few things off your list. And they're not staring at you every time you sit down at dinner and there's that one thing in the dining room that just needs to be fixed. But you just know it's going to take some time. And yeah, that's I'm with you on that one. I

I fixed the, the toilet yesterday or the little flapper that goes down, you know, I had to replace it cause it was leaking or something. And, know, and then, then of course, once you do that, then something else is wrong with it. So I had to go back yesterday and fix it again because the chain wasn't quite, it was too long and I had to do a thing because it kept hit anyway. That's why I don't do stuff like that because I do one thing and it ends up causing three more problems that I then have to fix. And

Rob Paterson (02:49)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (02:49)
then my life is miserable and I just want no, I'm just kidding. It's not that bad, but it is frustrating.

Rob Paterson (02:55)
Yeah. Well, and all I heard there was want, want, want, want. You're not a plumber, right? and I can't tell you how many times throughout my life I've tried to be a plumber, a mechanic or whatever, because I got the quote, you know, and I'm like, I'm not paying that much money for that. And, and maybe even was like an easier job, but like you said, I don't have the know-how. don't have the experience, even with like a YouTube account or whatever.

Jason Allison (03:01)
Yeah.

you

Rob Paterson (03:23)
or another one is like, I don't have the tool. remember replacing a fuel pump one time or not a fuel pump, a little fuel filter on a Ford Ranger. And this was like back when like a truck, you know, you'd look underneath and see lots of space and it looked like the easiest thing in the whole wide world. I just didn't know there was this thing called a fuel filter wrench that kind of pushed in and popped that connection free.

Jason Allison (03:25)
Yes.

Rob Paterson (03:47)
So by the time I was done, like I had gas just like almost pouring into my driveway and I'm like, you know, so yeah, sometimes, you know, that what seems like a lot of money, is not that much money because you don't really want to have to go to mechanic school and then apprentice at a garage and, know, pay for the classes and the certifications and the books and then buy all the tools. Sometimes it's just easier to go scratch the check, let the dude who knows what he's doing do it and like,

you know, half hour and be done.

Jason Allison (04:16)
Yeah, you know, so I'll make just a nice little segue here. I work, with you and I have been we were training in church, you know, last week and I noticed that churches in general and I'm obviously generalizing that a lot.

Churches tend to have that attitude about the way they approach doing ministry. Not that we're supposed to be hiring outsiders to do all this stuff, but we look at things and we're like, let's just, we can just do that. we can just do that. we can just do that. And they never actually stop long enough to count the cost, to count, to assess, is this the thing that we need to be doing? Are we moving in the right direction? And all the criteria for why we do or don't do something.

comes down to either, well, we've done it for years or the nickels and noses, right? A bunch of people showed up or, you know, it made some money. Like those are the things that we start talking. And I've just had multiple conversations in the last month with churches about this issue of, man, they've got 52 things planned in the next quarter. And I'm like, okay, you're a church of 110.

Who's doing all this stuff? Because that's a lot. And usually, they say, oh, well, such and such does this, and we've delegated, and we've done it. And I say, oh, that's great, but how come your announcements take 18 minutes in the service? Because you're announcing every single thing that's happening, and everybody that has an idea is just a new ministry, and it just gets going. And so I was just thinking today we should talk a little bit about the difference between outreach and busy work.

⁓ And you and I were at that strategy planning session a couple weeks ago, and they talked about the idea of this triangle and the idea of flourishing fruitfulness and faithfulness and those three concepts. And then Dave asked us to rank which of those we felt most in line with, which of those do we feel least in line with.

Rob Paterson (05:53)
Hmm.

Jason Allison (06:15)
you is that you're do you feel in this stage of life, you're really flourishing or maybe you just feel really faithful right now or maybe you feel really fruitful like you're seeing a lot of fruit. And that was a great discussion. Just talking through that. And you and I actually paired us up, which was probably a mistake to ever pair us up. But, you know, we kind of talked through it. I thought, man, we need to we need to have a conversation about this with our with our podcast listeners, because I think they need to be thinking in those terms. There's some really good stuff there.

Rob Paterson (06:42)
Yeah, Jason, let me, I'm going to go back before we go forward here, because I think one of the things that really exacerbates this challenge for a local church is that like there are a lot of churches in our country right now that are small churches that have just a handful of people.

Jason Allison (06:46)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (07:05)
you know, who called that church home. and a lot of those cases, it's people, you know, who are, you know, in like old, you know, they're in their late seventies, eighties, maybe even nineties. And so they don't have maybe the, energy to, to do a bunch of things. Right. And so we have all these examples of churches that have been great churches at one point in their life cycle that have these great people of God that, you know, it's like, it's not that they're, not doing.

Jason Allison (07:12)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (07:32)
good things. It's just that their season for, you know, that level of kind of activity has passed and the church hasn't

backfilled or reached people. so, you know, churches that are doing a lot, they can mistake that activity for vibrance and then they can point a lot of times in their own town to other churches and go see how we just don't want to be like so and so they stopped doing stuff and then they died. So we're just and it's like,

Jason Allison (07:44)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (07:59)
⁓ No, I don't think that that is so much how much you're doing or how little you're doing, you know, isn't so much the life or death thing.

And in some ways, doing too many things can contribute to death of many kinds as well. you know, I mean, but I do think that that sort of place we find ourselves historically and culturally with the church, lots of churches that have been around for a long time and just are kind of in those later stages of their life cycle.

Jason Allison (08:09)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (08:27)
And you know, so churches that are still doing a bunch of things are like, haha, we're not, we're not dying like them, even though they may be leading into some practices that are going to hasten death.

Jason Allison (08:37)
Yeah, yeah, yes, I agree. And I feel bad for those churches that because usually it ends with people being burned out, volunteers getting tired, you know, people just saying, I just can't do one more thing. I feel like my family feels like I live at the church and I'm a volunteer. You know, I help when I can, but my goodness, this is too much.

That's the thing that as a pastor and as a leader, you have to keep your eye on in that process. That exercise that Dave had us do from Clarity House, he asked us, which do you identify with the most? Is it faithfulness? Is it fruitfulness? Or is it flourishing? And then he read from John 15, which is talking about where Jesus is actually the last supper, that last little bit.

Rob Paterson (08:59)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (09:23)
And he tells him, says, you know, I'm the true vine. My father's the gardener. He says he cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. While every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. It's interesting that he said that the branches that are bearing fruit are the ones that he prunes. Now he doesn't cut them off. That's what he does with the unfruitful ones. But.

You know, I was just thinking if I'm a plant and I'm flourishing, right, I'm bearing fruit and that's when I get cut back. Like it feels like no, no, no. That's when I should be allowed to just, you know, flow and just let everything go. And I shouldn't I shouldn't have to endure pruning when I'm, you know, really flowering. And that that part really struck me. And he goes on. I just finished a couple of thoughts here.

Rob Paterson (10:15)
you

Jason Allison (10:17)
He tells Peter, know, you're already clean because of the words I've spoken to you. And then he says, remain in me as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. And then he says, I am the vine,

Rob Paterson (10:18)
you

Jason Allison (10:38)
you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing.

And that passage, when I think about applying that not just to me personally, but to a church, all of sudden I realize, wait a minute, it's not about doing more stuff. It's about being fruitful. And the goal in all of that is not that I'm bearing tons of fruit and I'm really cool and everybody likes me. The goal

Rob Paterson (11:06)
So,

Jason Allison (11:07)
in all of that is flourishing, right?

Rob Paterson (11:09)
Yeah. Well, you know, it was interesting because how he like first started it, you know, was he asked us which of those did we feel like we were most successful at and which one, you know, did we feel like we weren't as successful at? And, and I, you know, as you and I were talking that day, I said, you know, I just, feel like my

Jason Allison (11:09)
And so I don't know what were your thoughts as Dave was was was talking through that.

Rob Paterson (11:33)
I felt fruitful, we're in a fruitful season. Even though it's like winter time in Ohio, you know, we've had very full gatherings and lots of people being kind of responsive to God and just like the things you wanna see. But I felt like, you know, I was just kinda in the last sort of third of a real busy season that started just before the end of the year with Christmas

Jason Allison (11:35)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (11:55)
and you and I both actually had lots of.

Jason Allison (11:58)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Paterson (11:58)
funeral type activities for weeks on end and it just added to busyness. know, so my faithfulness was feeling lower, not because I feel like I've been faithless, but just because I've been so busy, you know, that it's impacted at least my emotional kind of connection with that idea. And ultimately, I feel like

flourishing for me personally is when faithfulness and fruitfulness kind of come together. So because I was struggling with one, was, you know,

And then, so when Dave like, you know, read that text from John 15 and Jesus saying, Hey, apart from me, you can do nothing. And then just reminded us that all of these things, our faithfulness, our fruitfulness and our flourishing are all a direct byproduct of Jesus. And apart from him, we can do nothing and stop like, I need to do better. I need to be better and start like being more connected with Jesus. That was like huge for me because yeah, I think as leaders, as ministers,

We feel the weight of responsibility for ourselves, for the flock, know, all that kind of stuff. And it's easy to fall into that it's on me kind of thinking. And nothing good comes from that. Maybe busyness.

Jason Allison (13:09)
Yeah. Yeah, I was so maybe, yeah, I jotted a note.

while he was talking, he said, you know, I often feel that if I'm faithful, then there will be fruitfulness and then I can flourish. Right. It's kind of this chain. And it really revolves around me doing the work. Right. But then Jesus said, apart from me, you can do nothing. So all of a sudden, my little equation just got blown up by Jesus. And I started going, wait. Like, I mean, I remember sitting in that moment going

Wow, I really have based a lot of this on me being able to do what needs to be done and not around the grace that we receive in Christ. one of the quotes that Dave said, I can't remember if this was his quote or he was quoting someone, but I wrote it down because he said, part of the grace of Eden was the pace of Eden.

Rob Paterson (14:00)
you

Mmm, so

good.

Jason Allison (14:09)
And the rhythm of Eden, remember, was he created them and then put them to bed. You know, basically it was night and then they woke up and then they started work. So the the rhythm of Eden was rest and then work. And the grace of all of that was around that pace. And, you know, we we talk about grace all the time as churches. You know, we say God's grace, amazing grace, all this stuff. But then we turn around and try to.

do everything as though it all relies on us getting it done. And we try to produce fruitfulness out of our own hard work and busyness. I just I don't know. just I've been there. I've talked with too many pastors recently that honestly are just tired. And it's not because of heavy, terrible things happen. They're tired because they've got events planned constantly and they are

always organizing or administrating something and Sunday becomes an afterthought and we you know, the main thing is no longer the main thing in a lot of ways Yeah

Rob Paterson (15:11)
Hmm.

Well,

and Jason, also think that there's plenty of churches, and mine would more tend to fall into this other category. Although sometimes we fall into all categories of spending too much time everywhere. ⁓ But some churches can even say, no, no, no. You could have heard your last statement say, we have the main thing, the main thing, we pour 99 % of our time into the weekend and all of our primary programming. And I'd still be like, okay, but like,

Jason Allison (15:28)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (15:46)
What is your devotional life look like personally with your family, with your staff, if you have staff at the church? Like are you guys growing spiritually or are you just perpetuating the machine that is there to help others have their liturgical weekly experience? ⁓

Jason Allison (15:50)
Yeah. Yeah, or maybe you're

just putting a better show on this week than you did last week. Is that fruitfulness? I mean, that's the question you got to ask.

Rob Paterson (16:12)
Right? Yeah, makes me this, all this makes me think of a Henry Cloud book. I still remember hearing him, gosh, Bethany and I were very like young in our ministry. And it was way back then that his book, Boundaries, kind of became, you know, just a staple in our lives and our ministries. I can't tell you how many copies of that Bethany has recommended or purchased for people over the years. But not that many years ago, he wrote a book called Necessary Endings.

Jason Allison (16:39)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (16:39)
which ⁓

I loved that book. loved it. I could, you know, I could give you a little book report still right now. And it's been years since I read it last just because of how much I love it. But as you brought this topic up, it made me think of this beautiful picture he gives of a rose bush. And, know, like the person who knows what they're doing will cut off a number of roses.

that look perfect, like there was nothing wrong with that rose, there was no imperfection, because the gardener knows that this bush can only, like only has the resources to sustain and to create X number of perfect roses. So even ones that are a little bit less

Jason Allison (17:14)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (17:22)
perfect, sometimes need to be cut off.

Jason Allison (17:26)
Great.

Rob Paterson (17:26)
so that

the ones that are the most important, the most life-giving, have the most potential, can be given all available resourcing.

Jason Allison (17:36)
Yeah, yeah. And let's be honest, that's a hard discernment to make. know, I mean, that's that's the that is the crux of leadership at some point, being able to make that discernment of, hey, we're doing 15 things. Everyone's tired. And of those 15 things, how are we deciding which ones we keep doing? Which do we put more energy into?

Which do we cut? Which do we just kind of pull back on? You know, those are the tough decisions that I'm just noticing that there are pastors, they're afraid to make that decision because, know, Aunt Mildred has just been passionate about the Doily ministry for, you know, 32 years. And the problem is she's got a group of women that she kind of hoards.

Rob Paterson (18:08)
you

Jason Allison (18:28)
You know and doesn't let them do anything else because they're making these doilies that they hand out somewhere and I don't know about you, but I don't keep too many doilies in my house anymore. That's

not really a thing. And yet they're putting all this time and energy and maybe even resources into making these things to hand out and nobody wants them. But the pastor is afraid to cut it off because you know.

Rob Paterson (18:49)
Hmm.

Jason Allison (18:56)
Mildred's been a pillar in the church for decades and her family maybe has someone in leadership that you don't want to cross them because that'll cause this and it just gets messy, right? And so I know when I talk with pastors who are struggling with this, you know, trying to figure that out, I'll be the first to acknowledge. Yeah, it's messy. It's not just a simple, you know, accounting sheet of pros and cons. Like you really have to think there's there's people involved in this.

Rob Paterson (19:24)
And I don't care. Like you might think, no, we're just like this little country church, or you might even think like on the other extreme, no, like we are well led and we're mission, vision values driven and you know, like, and we have gone through robust processes to determine and even clarify and re reignite and whatever, you know, whatever your thing is. But I still think, you know, how a church comes to their list of things.

is usually one

Jason Allison (19:50)
you

Rob Paterson (19:50)
of three ways, right? Like there's the, hey, we have always done this, right? So it's just, at some point along the way, like you just said with Aunt Mildred or whoever, you know, it became a sacred cow because man, for like the 92 years this church has been in existence, know, 90 of them, we have done this. And whether it's just one person showing up or the pastor showing up to unlock the building and nobody comes to this anymore.

Jason Allison (19:56)
Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (20:16)
Uh, until the day that this church closes its doors, there's people who just think, you know, because it was a part of our past and it's an important thing that just needs to sort of be offered. think number two, um, is that it has worked, you know, and, and, and there too, you know, what, what worked means is a different thing to everybody. You know, it could just be, well, a lot of people showed up. We filled the building. Um, you know, like people talk about it afterwards.

Jason Allison (20:25)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Rob Paterson (20:46)
But you know, I guess when we're talking about something working, I'm more interested in did anybody come to know and follow Jesus? Did any follower of Jesus take a step of growth in their walk? And then ultimately, which is kind of where I think churches need to go, because a lot of times churches are more congregational, right? So it's like, know, Aunt Mildred wants to do this and, you know,

cousin, Mike wants to do that. And it's just whatever people want to do. if enough people say, yeah, let's do that, they do it. And that's how they, you know, their calendar is determined. And once you get it set and busy, you know, like, mean, I can't like even just saying that out loud makes me almost sick to my stomach. Not because any of those things are bad things. But it's like, man, if we do everything, we're really doing nothing. And so I kind of wonder, like, what activities fit with the like the bullseye of your mission vision values, like

Jason Allison (21:29)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (21:37)
Who is God calling and creating your church to be, not like just like because it's a church and this is what every church does, but like kind of just the unique ways that the things, the people, the gifts that God has placed within your church and how those things intersect with your community. Like, you know, what activities pour gas on that fire and help that to take place in ways that reach people for Jesus and help them to grow spiritually. And then what other things are, they might be good.

You might have a lot of people show up, but it doesn't result in more people coming, more people participating, more people, you know, serving or giving or whatevering, right? Like it, just doesn't, it's just like a once a year thing that seems successful, but doesn't move any needles in terms of the church or the kingdom.

Jason Allison (22:10)
Mm-hmm.

So, I mean, you you've been at your church for 15 years. Can you think of an example of something where you've evaluated it after a couple of years and said, you know what, this isn't really a good, it's not a bad thing, but it's not a great thing. While you're thinking, I'll give one from my experience, because I hate to put you on the spot like that. I know you don't actually, I don't hate to do it. I love to do it, but I'm actually going to help you out here.

Rob Paterson (22:46)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (22:48)
We went when in

the church that I planted, we used to have a booth at the first Friday event downtown in Delaware, Ohio. And I mean, I was on the board of the downtown organization, like all the stuff. And, you know, we would have thousands of people come downtown during this three hour stretch, you know, on the first Friday of the month. And so the church for 25 bucks or whatever it was could do a booth and we could.

you know, set up a table, do a thing, whatever. And I remember everybody saying, we got to we got to do this. We got to do it every month. Yada, yada, yada. And we did it once or twice. And afterwards, we kind of got together and said, was this the best use of volunteers on a Friday night? And then, I mean, it wasn't much money, but, you know, 40 bucks or whatever it was to pay for the spot. And I remember all of us going, you know what? It would be better if we just all went to first Friday.

and just walked around and were just nice people and got to know people and met people without a booth and the awkwardness of, you know, all that. But it there's there's a balance there. And again, it was not a bad thing. Like there are churches that still get a booth on first Friday and they do the thing and they meet people. And that's great. But I just know for my church, we found it was way better for us to engage people in relational.

ways and invite him to come walk around with us rather than to be anchored in one place with a sign that had her name.

Rob Paterson (24:19)
Yeah, that's good. That's good. So I'm going to answer it different than you asked. And I think I've told the story before, but I'll just hit that.

high points, it was actually in our first church plant. We did a early, I think it was Tuesday or Wednesday morning prayer meeting. We did it at the denominational headquarters because it was a central location. We had a bunch of people from that building who worked there that attended our church. So, you know, I mean, on like the best days, it'd be Bethany and I, and maybe three other people. So five, like literally maximum.

But it was usually Bethany and I and this one other lady who was just super faithful and loved doing that early and all that sort of stuff. For us, it was before kids, so it was a manageable thing. And so as we got to the point in our church plant where we launched small groups, we're like, listen, we can go from having three or four or five people praying every week for these things to taking that and having 30 or 40 people every week praying for these things if we incorporate.

prayer into our small groups and really, and for the one lady other than Bethany and I who was always there, it felt like we had told her we were gonna amputate one of her arms or legs. It was a very, very difficult thing for her because that was just a traditional thing that had always been part of her life in ministry. so for us to, what it felt like taking it away was not good. Interestingly, in my church,

Jason Allison (25:22)
right.

Rob Paterson (25:51)
One of the areas that has not been, you know, very operational in for the last year and a half has been our marriage ministry. And we've had a couple who was like, Hey, I'm going to, I'm going to step in and lead that. And they just had an event that was scheduled and it was announced and there were people signed up for the event and this couple and they're just in a busy season of life with kids and all that kind of stuff. Well, they, they decided we can't do this. So we're just going to pull the plug. And that's actually.

where Bethany and I did the actually the opposite. And we just sort of stepped in and said, hey, this is an important thing. The event coming up was really just some food that we can figure out easily and a conversation with people about, what should the marriage ministry look like going forward? So instead of like everybody else was like, yeah, it's not a big deal. We haven't been doing anything anyway. Let's just not do anything. And I'm like, we could have not done anything, but we took some steps. We invited some people, we had a plan. We're not.

We're not, cause at that point we might actually destroy some momentum that hurts the future of being able to pour into and help, you know, couples and families. So it's like, I don't want to do that. So we just sort of step in and said, Hey, we can go to an event and facilitate a conversation, which we did because you know, sometimes it's the opposite. Like in the reason why you need to say no to a bunch of things, right. It's so that you have the margin to occasionally when there is something you're like,

Jason Allison (26:56)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (27:14)
That's really not like my purview. It's not on my plate per se, but I have enough margin where I can step in and do this one time because I'm not running around like a chicken with my head cut off.

Jason Allison (27:25)
Yeah, so what kind of, you know, don't know, process, what kind of criteria do you try to use when you're thinking about, you know, a particular event? Oftentimes, churches will call these outreach events, but also it could be internal, like you just described, a marriage ministry, you know. I'm just curious, like what kind of

What kind of criteria do you, what kind of lens do you use when evaluating some of these things? like, kind of suggestions would you give?

Rob Paterson (27:50)
Yeah.

Well, again, we would almost always filter those things through emission, vision and values. And in particularly our core values. like, for example, I'll give you one thing here. we had a couple when they first started coming to this, gosh, it's been more than 10 years ago now, but she made these little sausage balls that had sausage and Bisquick and whatever. You ate them.

angels sang, beams of light shot down from, I don't know if it's because like the cholesterol and fat was so high that you're like nigh onto a heart attack and going to see Jesus, but they were amazing. And she made them and brought them like, you know, for many, many, many Sundays in a row. And she's like, I just want this to be one of the things I do. And I said, awesome. But what about like when you go on vacation? What about if you're sick? What about when we multiply into a new location?

Jason Allison (28:17)
Yep.

Rob Paterson (28:44)
And everyone's like, that's the church that has those great sausage balls, but they don't have them there because there's, there's, there isn't one of you over there. Like, is it simple enough and repeatable enough that we can multiply, multiplication is one of our core values, right? So if, if, if it requires you to happen and without you, could never happen. Probably not going to do that. and excellence is another one of our core values, right? So we want to do things as well as possible to honor our God. And so again,

Jason Allison (28:58)
Yeah. you

Rob Paterson (29:13)
Yeah,

I could have someone else do it, but those ones aren't good or even maybe hers weren't good. it's like, Hey, I appreciate your heart in this, but these things are trash. So, so we really, really, really do try to, so that we, we do have enough margin to say, Hey, when we have an opportunity to multiply spaces where people can come as they are encounter Jesus and leave different, which is like our whole thing, right? Um, we don't want to be doing so many things that we have to like kill three quarters of them now to actually.

Jason Allison (29:17)
Yeah. Yeah. ⁓

Rob Paterson (29:43)
do what we said we were all about doing.

Jason Allison (29:45)
Yeah. I know it's hard to honestly run things through the mission and the vision and the values. And you get people who try to justify everything. Yeah. And so you've got to really be a little bit hard-nosed on some of that as the leader.

Rob Paterson (29:55)
can make anything fit if I want to do it.

Jason Allison (30:04)
You don't have to be mean, but you've got to at least be willing to say, okay, let's really and the whole reason this even came to mind and I know my mother and the church where she goes, the pastor there, I know he listens occasionally. So I'm not calling him out. I'm I'm applauding him because he was, my mom called me and she was talking about this huge event they do at Christmas and it's really cool, Nativities and everything and that's great.

But she said they just had kind of their debrief on it. And we're asking like, hey, do we want to do this again next year? It requires a ton of energy. Doesn't necessarily require a ton of cash, but you've got just organization and you've got dozens of people who are involved and all this stuff. And this is not a big church. I mean, they're growing quickly, but.

This is not a church of a thousand where they've got all this and they don't have staff who are running it or anything like that. And so the pastor, after listening to them talk for a while, he finally stepped in and said, hey, I just I want to talk as a pastor for just a minute. And he said, as your pastor, I hear that there are several of you that are just tired. Like you've been doing a ton. And he said, I just.

I just want to care for you as your pastor. And so I want you to take the next week and let's evaluate all the things we do and let's figure out if there's a couple we could cut back on because I want you to be completely present when we are worshiping Jesus and not, you know, worried about the signup sheet or this or that, or the, you know, is this organized? And so there are times where

You know, we really need to be able to step in in a pastoral way, right? And say, hey, we're doing a lot. Let's you know, you're not cutting something just to cut it. You know, you're not you're you celebrate what's been going on. But then you also say, OK, let's let's really step back and say, what is actually moving the needle in our ability to accomplish the mission that God has given us? And sometimes you can have 15.

good things that move the needle. But if you got rid of seven of them, the eight that are left would actually move the needle faster. But we're afraid to cut anything because they're all good. They're good stuff. And every church is going to have a little bit of a different rubric that they'll use to discern that. But you say, these are our values.

And you know, excellence is one of those. Multiplication is one of those. Those are things that you use at your church to evaluate. Hey, are we going to keep doing this? Are we going to add something or subtract something? And so a church needs to be clear on that so they can also begin making some of those evaluations.

Rob Paterson (32:56)
Yeah. So I got a couple of things, Jason. One is when I first got to New Hope now 15 years ago, I had so many people who would come to me and be like, Hey, this is the perfect church. If only we just had this one other thing. And every single person who said that would just add their one thing that they were super passionate about. So for some it was Sunday school, right? Like if we perfect church, but if we just did some, it's perfect church. But if we just did this, right. Like, and if I would have started by going, that's a great idea. Let's do that too.

Jason Allison (33:10)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (33:25)
you know, we would go from having like 30 ministry areas, which already seems like a lot, you know, to probably having a hundred. ⁓ And we also have people who are just very engaged in that kind of thing. I went to this church that here's a cool program. Here's a cool thing that should happen, you know? And it's like, in a lot of those things, maybe we did once or we tried to do, and we're like, yeah, that was super fun. But like, that's not what God has placed us here to do. So I think, you know, having

Jason Allison (33:27)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Rob Paterson (33:54)
Having clarity on what we have agreed we are here for really does help, you know, filter some of those things out. The community I grew up in was a small town. It was a small town of 600 in Ontario, Northern Ontario, Canada. And one year there was this lady, I was still in high school when this started. Her husband died, she was struggling with cancer and she just had this vision for doing what she called the holy walk, which

There's this huge park in the center of the town and, you know, the local tourism board set up some primitive campsites. it's like, for me to say it was a trailer park, you know, wouldn't be accurate, but just some primitive, cool trees, you know, huge rock formations, really cool space. And so it's like, we could have people come to this one church, walk up the street as in families, like going to the census and walk through this park.

Jason Allison (34:28)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (34:50)
And, and literally every church in town, really even like people who weren't much into church going, like all got together. Like, and it was like a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. There were people who like bust in, tour groups, bust in people drove from a hundred plus miles to like, it was really, really, really well done. And I participated in a little bit to the years that I was there before heading up to college.

And it was this great thing. But here's the thing, like most of the people that came, like, you know, were, and or participated, they probably felt in more of a cultural sense, like they had served God, even though, you know, they were just doing this community thing. Most of the groups who came in were, you know, church groups from churches from, you know, a hundred miles away or whatever. So all good things, but I don't know.

Jason Allison (35:38)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (35:44)
And again, I don't have this information, but I mean, it certainly wasn't a noticeable thing. Some of those churches now are closed. But like none of that, none of all the months of effort and sewing and building props and setting things up and forming the volunteer crews and going over everything. None of that really impacted, you know, the people in the local churches, any of those churches growing, any of those churches, seeing more people follow Jesus. It was just a really cool way for a community.

to tell the Christmas story. Now, is that

Jason Allison (36:13)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (36:15)
a bad thing to do? No, but if you feel like God has put us here to help people grow spiritually and to help people begin their spiritual life and journey, and that never ever, ever happens after, I don't know, like five million volunteer hours, you might wanna reevaluate allocating all those volunteer hours and that thing. Even though it's a, by all other metrics, it's a hugely successful event.

Jason Allison (36:36)
Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and that's where we've got to be serious about our mission. Do we actually know what it is? Are we actually, you know, that's one thing. So when I do a vision day with churches, one of the things I ask towards the end of the day is,

Okay, you've settled on this vision. You've settled on these, you know, goals, things you want to work toward. What are you willing to sacrifice to make that happen? And that's where people kind of look at me like, well, no, no, no, no, we're just going to do those as well as keep doing everything else we were doing. Like, no, no, no, no, that's not going to work. What are you willing to sacrifice for the vision that God has given you? And I was talking to a church last night, actually, and

they're in the midst of a transition. Their lead pastor is about to retire. They're going to start looking for a new pastor, et cetera. And they were asking about vision and how to, you all this stuff. And I said, well, here's the bottom line. Ultimately, your vision, instead of, I've just heard it so long talked about in terms of what do you see yourself doing over the next seven to 10 years? Right. I said, I really want to change the framework for that. I want to ask.

And I want churches to be asking, what is God pulling us toward over the next five to seven years? And then how can we line ourselves up to follow him in that? And that way, it's not a manmade vision. Again, what did the passage that we started the thing, you know, unless you abide in me, you will not bear fruit. Right. The object isn't for you to figure out what kind of fruit you want to be and then make it. The object is to abide in Christ.

and let Him produce the fruit through you and allow Him to call you forward in that.

Rob Paterson (38:23)
Yeah, and Jason, I mean, what a great place, I think, for us to land the plane. So let me just like say that so simply, because this is how I my mind and heart like a pastor ministry leader. If you're hearing consistently from people in your church that they're tired, if if the honest answer is you sort of peer inside yourself, if you are tired, man, all of all the programs, all the activity, even the things that might

seem and feel like, the room was full, the building was full, know, the event was full. Man, hit pause on that stuff and make sure you are spending good quality, consistent time daily and weekly with Jesus because all of this, you know, your faithfulness, your fruitfulness, your flourishing is all a gift from and dependent on Him.

Jason Allison (39:14)
Amen. Well, thanks for listening. Easter is coming probably sooner than you realize. And I hope that you're

Starting to get plans together because this is a great opportunity to really shine the light of the gospel to people because they're they're actually You know might be talking about it. So make sure you're you're making those plans If you ever want to reach out and chat with us about you know What's going on all the stuff that you should be doing or aren't doing or should stop doing? You know, we're always happy to step in and to help in that process of you evaluating We hope you have an amazing week and we look forward to talking to you again soon