the Monday Morning Debrief: Closing Shop
A month ago, Yahoo! Finance posted an article speculating about 8 Companies that would have to close the most stores this year in order to make it through the year. The reason being is because the 2012 holiday season was not so good to these companies. Therefore, companies like Best Buy, Sears, Office Max and Game Stop are possibly in trouble of closing many stores just to survive until next holiday season in hopes that 2013 will be better to them than 2012.
So how does this apply to ministry?
How many stores need to be closed so that your business can successful? By that I mean, what are you doing currently in ministry that isn’t thriving that needs to closed so that the rest of your ministry can be successful? This is a tough question for sure because answering this requires you to take a hard look at your ministry in order to effectively evaluate what is successful and what is a dud.
Two criteria for me in evaluation success is that I’ve always said that I will do a program however long students continue to show up and it is meeting our core philosophy of ministry. I never (and I hope you feel the same way) want to be doing a ministry or program just to do it. And that means your “traditional youth group”. If traditional youth group isn’t working, meaning it’s not drawing students and it’s not in sync with your core philosophy of ministry, then you need to close the doors. Or, make the changes that need to be made for it to be successful.
I’m not gonna lie. My Sunday Night Group is NOT where I want it to be. In fact, there was a time earlier this year where I felt that I needed to close the doors of this program. But after serious evaluation and feedback, I realized it didn’t need to be closed. It needed to be tweaked and changed so that it can line up better with our core philosophy of ministry. There are still things that I am looking to tweak and change, but it is more aligned with our overall vision than it has been before.
So what about you? How is your ministry doing and will it’s current state last the year? TAKE A MINUTE right now to think through your ministry to see if you have any programs or activities that you need to close. It’s never ideal to close programs or activities but if your student ministry is better able to thrive because you shut a program or 2 down, then prayerfully consider what needs to close, what needs to be tweaked and what needs more resources added to it.
Thoughts? Experiences? Post a comment so that we can all learn from each other and benefit.
Interesting post, however one of the things that I learned is that it is very hard assess ministry effectiveness. Determining what is 'working' and 'how' is as much of an art as it is a science. For instance one local church decided to cancel a youth ministry event because of low turnout however what they didn't know is that the local school district changed the school calendar.
I have adopted a annual church meeting which asks the congregation what we should focus on. This helps me identify where I can tap into the energy, enthusiasm and interest of the membership. In this way we are able to discuss how ministries are working and where we need to grow and or sunset others.
Great comment and I agree. It is very hard to determine what is effective or not. For each ministry, it will be different. I think the point I was trying to make is that we should be constantly looking to see what is working and now and be willing to close shop on programs that we know are not working. But again, each ministry and minister will be judging that differently. Thanks again for your comment!