Of the thousands of things I’ve learned from Nelson Searcy, one of the most impactful has been learning to make a to stop doing list. We all know about to do lists, but not nearly as many people understand the importance of having a to stop doing list. And here in December is the perfect time of the year to pull it out and add to it as many things as you can.
I do this every year. As one year comes to a close, I begin reflecting on what I’ve been doing over the last year, asking “Is this absolutely essential? Is this mission critical? Would the church suffer any deleterious effects if this or that just disappeared?” And if there isn’t an incredibly compelling reason to keep doing something, I stop doing it.
What we need to realize is that everything naturally gravitates towards complexity. This is the result of adding and adding and adding without appropriate levels of subtracting. The way you prevent complexity (and needlessly working yourself to death) is to regularly subtract. Just because you started something doesn’t mean you have to, or should keep doing it forever.
In John 15:1-2 ESV Jesus told his disciples , “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” There’s a simple yet wonderful principle here: Pruning results in greater fruitfulness. And this is why it’s essential to cut out anything superfluous to our mission, or to your hedgehog concept.
Let me show you what this has looked like for me the DLT this year.
- Nights of Prayer and Worship. We do these because we desire, like the early church, to be devoted to the apostles teaching, fellowship, communion and prayer (Acts 2:42). But in deciding to do four events per year we’ve acted, practically speaking, as if these nights were the only venues for prayer, when in fact we pray together on Sundays and throughout the week in our small groups (not to mention each day on our own). If we don’t have four of these per year, it’s not like we’ll become a church that doesn’t pray. So we’re still going to have them, but we’re going to cut back to two events per year, and we’re going to scale down what each one looks like so that it doesn’t have to be as big of a production and they’ve been in the past.
- Surveyors Course. We started these after service events because it’s important that our people learn how to go into all the world and preach the gospel (Mark 16:15), but our model at New Day is Sunday and Small Groups, and this event doesn’t fit in either of those two categories. So we’re going to cut Surveyors Course, and address the need for our people learning personal evangelism by making sure we have small groups offered each year that focus on sharing our faith. This meets the need of training our people while cutting out two events per year.
- Staff Luncheons. We started doing these for two main reasons: 1) disseminate important information to the staff, and 2) have fun and fellowship together. But since we now use the educate portion of staff meeting to share important news and have added staff funtivities to the events calendar, staff luncheons are now superfluous and have therefore been cut.
- Summer Internships. The goal in starting this was to give the children of the staff a positive experience working at the church, in hopes of at least some of them becoming future staff members. But as it’s played out, it’s resulted in some of our kids who have no intention of going into full-time ministry taking the place of someone else (who is not a child of someone on staff) who wants to go into full-time ministry. So long story short, we’re going to cut the teen internship program, and instead use any budgeted money for internships for college age students who have an interest in going into full-time ministry, which will be so much less work that what we’ve been doing, yet will better give us what we’re truly looking for (future staff).
- Weekly Email. For fifteen years we’ve been sending out a weekly email. And that’s why we’ve probably kept doing it – simply because we always have. But recently, we looked at the data (the open rate, the click rate, etc) and realized this isn’t something we should be sinking time into. The return on investment just isn’t there. We realized that any time we dedicated to the weekly email will be better spent investing in social media, which is why we’re cutting the weekly email. Now don’t worry, we’ll still give a video preview of the sermon and will still post what songs we’re doing each week, just on social media vs through email.
- The educate portion of staff meeting. This was implemented years ago, when there wasn’t nearly as much emphasis placed on professional development among the staff. There was a time when this was arguably the primary means of professional development. But boy how times have changed! Nowadays everyone is reading multiple books a year, doing multiple site-visits a year, listening to podcasts, attending conferences (and the list goes on). Even though this is the case I’ve continued to take the time to prepare some thirty-five leadership lessons each year (with some of you covering the rest). So it’s unintentionally become PD overload. Therefore, in 2024 we’re cutting back. I’ll be working with the DLT to come up with the topics we feel are important to teach every year (stuff like time management, staff/volunteer management, how to prevent burnout, and of course, a rotation of 1 Timothy 4:12) and then we’ll hit those 1-2x a month vs every week.
Now if you evaluate any one of these items, the time, energy and money savings isn’t all that impressive. But the power of the to stop doing list lies in its cumulative impact. You save a little time here, a little time there, a little energy here, a little energy there. And it adds up to something significant.
So I would strongly encourage each of you to carve out some time before this year comes to a close to work on your to stop doing list. What if spending three hours on this this year, ends up saving you three hours a week next year? Wouldn’t that be worth it? I truly believe this exercise is one of those things where you can’t say “I don’t have time to,” because the reality is, you don’t have time not to.
Note: You need to get approval from your supervisor before you make any significant cuts to your department. While I very much want everyone to cut out any superfluous, I don’t want us accidentally cutting anything important, which is where your supervisor comes into play.
DISCUSSION QUESTION: Has today’s lesson sparked anything in your mind that you think you might like to cut for the upcoming year? (This can be the first item you add to your to stop doing list)