Photo by Igor Son on Unsplash

Have you ever met someone for coffee only to have them show up late? Have you ever gone to a meeting that was supposed to start at 6 p.m. but started closer to 6:20? Have you ever gone to a church service that was supposed to start at 9 a.m. but started closer to 9:13?

It’s frustrating, disrespectful, and hinders one’s influence in life. And this isn’t just leadership; even comedians get this. 

Here are three things that being on time shows:

What does being on time show to you and those around you?

1. It shows respect to the person you are meeting with (and their time). When you’re late, you communicate, “I’m more important than you.” You would never say this, but being late can be an attempted power play. It shows a lack of care for the other person because it says, “Your time isn’t as valuable as my time, and what you have after this isn’t as important as this is.” You can’t make that decision.

2. It shows you are self-disciplined. Being late (even though it will happen sometimes) often indicates you need to be more disciplined. Your previous appointment went long, so tell the person you will be late. Nothing is more frustrating than waiting for someone late and not knowing when they will be there. So let the person know.

But being on time means you have planned your day; you know how long a drive or meeting will take. It also means you keep meetings on track and don’t allow a 30-minute meeting to become a 90-minute.

3. It shows you have your priorities in line. As a leader or a person who wants to have influence, your priority is people. Wasting their time by being late shows your priorities are out of line. It also shows you think more highly of yourself than the other person.

Now, let’s apply all of these to a church.

Why? So many churches and church plants don’t start on time. When we first began Revolution (the church in Tucson), it was 10 a.m., and the only people in the auditorium were myself, the band, and the tech team. Our worship leader looked at me and said, “Do we start?” I thought briefly and said, “Yep, we start on time.”

Whether or not your church begins on time communicates different things. 

1. It shows respect to the people who came (and their time). Time is important in our culture, and we don’t like it when someone else wastes our time. For a church, you want to communicate to guests (and they are usually on time) that you will respect their time. This communicates that we will respect you. It communicates care and respect to the kids’ workers because churches that start late often go late, which is a fast way to lose them. 

Pastors often think, “We are supposed to start at 10, but most people don’t show up until 10:10, so we’ll start at 10:12.” Here’s what you just told everyone in your church: “We start at 10:12, so come then.” Which means they’ll show up at 10:20.

2. It shows you are disciplined. A lot happens on a Sunday morning, and it is easy to fall behind schedule or start late, especially if you are a portable church. This means that to start on time, you need systems to ensure things get done on time and aren’t stressful. Are some mornings stressful? Yes. Do things break and fall apart? Yes. But that shouldn’t be the norm.

3. It shows you have your priorities in line. Again, people are your priority, and if you, as a church, care about their time, whether they are guests, members, or volunteers, you communicate care to them. When you don’t prioritize time, you communicate you don’t care.

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

Picture a church staff meeting.

Someone comes in and says, “I was talking to someone on Sunday morning, and they had a great idea for a new ministry. What if we start a ministry to _____?” That blank can be anything: a ministry for moms, men, people who won’t come on Sunday morning, young adults, or senior adults.

How do you know? Should you do every idea and opportunity presented to your church?

What if you should say no? Or wait?

How do you know?

Here are 6 questions to ask before starting a new ministry or program at your church.

What is missing? Before discussing the need for a monthly men’s breakfast, college ministry, or the opportunity presented on a Sunday morning, I’d encourage you to step back and ask, “What are we missing?”

Another way to think about this is, “What is the problem?”

Say the problem is that men are lonely and disconnected. This led someone to offer to start a monthly men’s breakfast. But is that the answer? It might be, it might not be.

Too often, a church jumps into an idea or opportunity without asking, “Is this something we are missing? Is this a gap in our strategy? Is this a “problem” or “need” to be solved?

Is this a need? Too often, we jump into opportunities that are not needed.

Does your church have several _____ people who would be served by this ministry? Is your church doing anything right now that might meet this need? Or is your church doing anything that would compete with this new initiative?

A lot of times in churches, things get started because the church down the road is doing something, someone’s last church did it, or because the pastor went to a conference recently and heard about this amazing new idea that is reaching hundreds at a church in a different part of the country.

And while all those things might be true, it doesn’t mean that it is a need for your church to meet today.

Is anyone near us filling this need? Here is a forgotten truth that churches must remember: Just because it is a need doesn’t mean you should meet it. Your church does not have to meet every need in your community, nor can it.

This doesn’t mean you reject something, but you do need to stop and ask if someone else is filling this need. Is there a way for you to partner with them, come alongside them to help, etc.?

My hunch for the future is that more churches must partner to meet different needs or serve different groups of people in their community.

Is this the only way to meet this need? Back to the men’s breakfast idea. Is a monthly men’s breakfast a way to connect men? Yes. Is it the only way? No.

Once you decide something is a need and that you can and should meet it, don’t jump into doing what has always been done or even what other churches are doing. Those are good ideas you might pull from, but start brainstorming how to do something.

I think every church needs to consider how to move more things away from being an official church ministry or even in a church building. Being a ministry or at the building might make sense, but a men’s breakfast at a local diner might make more sense than at the church.

Do we have the people, resources, and bandwidth to do this? Sadly, this question is rarely asked.

Just because something is a good idea, it might not be the right season. You may not have the financial resources or bandwidth to make it happen as a church and team.

That’s okay.

It might be a great idea, but the wrong season means it is time to wait.

Or, it is time to cut something else to make room for this new thing.

Every church has a limit to what they can and should do.

And finally, a question that I wish more churches would ask themselves.

Are we the church to do that? 

Your church doesn’t have to do everything. 

Your church isn’t meant to do everything. 

God has given your church specific people with specific giftings to reach certain people and to make a certain impact in your region and the world. 

As a church, you must ask, “Is this our calling to fulfill?”