Home Pastors Articles for Pastors 7 Reasons Your Church Needs to Go on a Diet

7 Reasons Your Church Needs to Go on a Diet

Most churches—more than eight out of 10—are busy. Too busy.

These churches need to slim down their plethora of programs, activities and ministries.

They need to go a busyness diet.

Unfortunately, many church leaders equate activities with godliness or ministry fruitfulness.

For certain, churches must have some clear plan of discipleship for their members. Sadly, some of the busiest churches actually diminish discipleship fruitfulness.

And ceasing certain activities in the church can be extremely hard. You can run into sacred cows and favored ministries.

Still, most churches should pursue a busyness diet for at least seven reasons.

1. Excessive activities can actually preclude members from growing spiritually.

I actually interviewed one church member who said he didn’t have time to read his Bible. He was worn out almost every day from church activities.

2. A church that is too busy rarely evaluates the effectiveness of its activities.

Leaders often erroneously presume that the busyness is a sign of fruitfulness.

3. Activity-focused churches are often inwardly focused.

Those ministries are typically for the members and are rarely evangelistic or community focused.