The Simple Church.
Is your church simple? I don’t mean simple as in, “Hey you Simpleton, take that dunce cap off your head and figure it out!” But simple as in, “I know what we’re doing. I know why we’re doing it. And, most importantly, I know how we are going to get it done.” Here’s a taste of simple:
- Google has one image, a few links, and a search box on its main page, yet it is responsible for 75% of the searches conducted on the Internet.
- Apple’s iPod is one of the best selling pieces of technology of all time, yet it essentially has one big button (scroll wheel plus a select button in the middle) that controls the whole device. There are other devices that have more robust features, but none have managed the simplicity of navigation that Apple has. (This, of course, is to say nothing of the iPod Touch which has no “physical” buttons at all!)
- Fast food restaurants like Chick-Fil-A have literally one item on the menu: Chicken. They also have about a bazillion ways in which they prepare said chicken (I know, I counted once), but the point is clear: We do chicken and chicken alone. In a word, simplicity.
- I recently came across John Maeda’s website, The Law of Simplicity, and my life feels less cluttered already. Maeda is a world-class designer who focuses on one of the most overlooked yet essential elements of design, simplicity.
In a world as cluttered as ours is, wouldn’t it be refreshing for the church to be an oasis for the messy masses? I realize I’m painting with big, broad, idealistic strokes here, but how can we be more intentional about “cutting the fat” in our churches?
Figuring out what God has called us in our specific context to do and jettisoning the rest? That may mean prayerfully discerning what beloved programs and classes need to get “Old Yeller’d” - tied up to the tree in the backyard and shot dead! If a program has gone “Old Yeller”, it’s become a danger to you and the people you’re shepherding. It won’t be long before that rabid program gets out of hand and bites someone!
Has anyone out there figured out ways to “beat the bloat” of so many churches today? What’s worked? What hasn’t?
Mad props to the authors of “Simple Church” for the base of this post. Go out and by it!
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