The Biggest Roadblock to a Better Church

Decision time

A truly close-knit church family in which we are surrounded by kindred hearts is something for which most people are starving.

In the response to my 2020 release, Church Reset, that one concept has received more feedback and follow-up questions than anything else discussed in the book. Looking at John 13:34-35, John 17:21-23, Acts 2:38-47, and the numerous “one another” verses in the New Testament, anyone who’s studied the issue at all knows church is supposed to be more than it typically has been.

While we can talk about how to get there and share notes on what has or hasn’t worked, that’s the wrong place to start the discussion.

There’s one significant roadblock to our growth: almost all of us are way too busy.

Relative to some, I haven’t been around that long, and most of my life has been lived in the internet era. So, I may be speaking from ignorance here. But, it seems like there was a time when life wasn’t so breathlessly overbooked.

People could sit on the front porch and catch up with the neighbors, or have a “third place” (somewhere aside from home and work) to hang out and catch up with friends they would regularly see.

Now, it seems like it’s go, go, go all the time. Getting two people’s calendars lined up so they can spend so much as an hour together can seem impossible. Families have it especially tough, as kids’ activities often keep parents scrambling all over town. And I’m not looking down on anyone here, either. I struggle to find windows in the schedule just as much as anybody else.

But all of the going and doing makes any of the sitting and talking impossible. Hospitality and visitation, the secret sauce of a closer church, can’t fit on the calendar.

Even churches can become so program-bloated that the members have no time for family or building relationships with each other outside the building.

The weird thing is, in all of our busyness, we’re setting all-time records for screen time. We have hours a day for Facebook and Netflix but can’t hang out with each other. Mentally, having someone over or going to their house can feel like a chore, especially when you can sit on the couch, click “Like” on their post, and trick yourself into thinking you connected with them.

So, there are two steps needed.

First, we need to see how busy we actually are.

Start with the screen time, but take a look at everything else you do and see how much of it is actually needed. When we take stock of what’s eating up our time, we might find we’re not actually busy, we’re just busying ourselves.

And if that’s the case, it’s pretty easy to correct. Put something on the calendar—whether attending a church event, getting together with a brother or sister, visiting the elderly, making a call, you name it—so once you get there you can’t spend the time on the normal busy-making.

Second, if we’re still too busy, we need to make some cuts.

Maybe your calendar audit reveals you aren’t sitting around in front of a screen watching the hours go by, but you really are that occupied all the time. A lot (or even all) of the things probably look highly important. That’s when it’s time to choose—how badly do I actually want to be closer to my Christian brothers and sisters?

If there’s not a single thing that can be cut back to get more involved with the people of your church, in most cases the priorities are probably out of alignment.

Hebrews 11:6 says we must believe God rewards those who diligently seek Him, and this is one practical application of that principle. We have to believe that acting in faith by trading personal time and wall-to-wall hobby pursuit for Christian fellowship will be rewarded by God.

And as we start to build that Christian closeness, I doubt anyone would say “Actually, I was happier when I was spending this time scrolling TikTok or running to activities all over town like my hair’s on fire.”

It doesn’t take a lot. You probably won’t be having other Christians at your table 7 nights a week, and that’s just fine. I firmly believe cutting out just 5-6 hours a month for each other would transform our churches.

But until we can curb our addiction to hustle and bustle, I don’t think we can count on becoming the close-knit church we say we want to be.

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Notes

Check out this week’s Think Deeper Podcast episode, ‘Is “Placing Church Membership” Biblical?’