A church leader must balance two things: 1) working IN the church and 2) working ON the church.
Working IN the church refers to doing the tasks that keep things going. If the teaching pastor doesn’t work IN the church on a given week, there will be no message for Sunday. If the director of finance doesn’t work IN the church the offering doesn’t get deposited.
Working ON the church refers to doing the tasks that keep things growing. If you don’t work ON your department, you’ll never come up with new and better ways to do things. If you don’t work ON the church, you’ll never expand the number of services, increase the number of staff, or improve the systems that help make disciples.
We have to balance working IN the church and working ON the church. And as important as working IN the church is, it often is the enemy of working ON the church, because the tasks of working IN the church are so many, we feel as if we don’t have any time left to work ON the church. I didn’t say it was easy, but we must make time to work ON the church, and not just IN it.
Don’t wait until your “to do” list is all caught up to start working ON the church. Be proactive. Schedule time in your week to work ON the church. Make it one of your “to do’s”. And fight, fight, fight to do something each week to not just keep things going, but to keep things growing.
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