I ran across an interesting quote today. Peter Drucker wrote the book Post-Capitalist Society. In it he states "Every organization of today has to build into its very structure the management of change." "has to build in organized abandonment of everything it does. It has to learn to ask every few years of every process, every product, every procedure, every policy: ‘If we did not do this already, would we go into it now, knowing what we now know?"
I’m happy that my brain thinks like his. I tend to question everything that I am doing in ministry and often think about what should be abandoned. I’ve been a part of some amazing churches and have seen great programs come and go. Sometimes we tend to hold onto things though much longer than we should. It gets very difficult in the church to end programs sometimes because we care so much about the people who came up with the ideas and are running them. I heard someone call it "Strategic Planned Abandonment" and I think that fits with what we should do. Just so noone thinks that I am saying that everything old is bad please know that I think a lot of young hip youth ministry ideas I’ve come up with have been in need of being put out to pasture.
Anyways, its something to think about. How many of the things we are passionate about would we be willing to have someone tell us its time to do away with.
i’m scared how your brain thinks
haaa…..good post…I like the idea of building change into an organization…
Hey there Lars, good thoughts…I think like this too and I find the greatest struggle is in bringing the rest of the “ship” along with me. I think building this idea into the whole structure of ministry or any vision/organization/etc and reminding people of it is so good. I find myself intentionally changing things so that nothing becomes too “thats the way it’s done…”. Then I get tired and think that often I am the worst enemy of my free time. Then again, if I didn’t keep that creative process alive I’d be so bored.