Most churches do not drift off mission because they chase bad ideas. They drift because they chase too many good ones. A ministry here, an event there, a program that someone really cares about, and before long the church is busy with everything except the one thing Jesus sent it to do.
The Bible has a phrase for that kind of busyness, and it comes from one of the strangest stories in the Old Testament.
Busy Here and There
In 1 Kings 20, a prophet disguises himself as a wounded soldier and waits for the king of Israel by the road. He tells the king a story: in the middle of a battle, he was handed a prisoner and told to guard him with his life. Then he admits what happened: “as your servant was busy here and there, he was gone” (1 Kings 20:40).
The soldier was not lazy. He was busy. He was simply busy with the wrong things, and he lost the one thing he had been told to keep.
Churches can do the same. The difference between a growing church and a declining one is often the number of good, well-intentioned distractions it allows to pull it away from the mission. Imagine Jesus walking through the back door on a Sunday morning and asking, “Why haven’t you reached your city?” No church wants its only answer to be, “Lord, we were busy here and there.”
The Lesser Is Blessed by the Greater
Scripture states a principle that every church leader eventually learns: “It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior” (Hebrews 7:7). The writer of Hebrews is speaking about Melchizedek blessing Abraham, but the principle reaches further. When the greater things are in order, the lesser things are blessed.
That is why the decision to start a ministry usually is not about right or wrong, or even good idea versus bad idea. It is about bandwidth. One pastor of a fast-growing church in Kansas disbanded his choir for a simple reason: there were not enough people serving in children’s ministry. A choir is a wonderful thing. On a Sunday morning, children’s ministry matters more. The lesser is blessed by the greater.
Author Greg McKeown makes a similar point in Essentialism: the word “priority” was singular for centuries. It meant the first thing. Only recently did people start talking about “priorities,” as if a church or company could have five first things at once. Churches that try to do everything usually end up doing nothing.
Write the Vision and Make It Plain
The Lord told the prophet Habakkuk, “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it” (Habakkuk 2:2). People cannot run with a vision they cannot see.
At Citylight Church, that vision is about building lives on Jesus: a church large enough to lead hundreds to believe the gospel every week, substantial enough to equip believers to build incredible lives, and formidable enough to reshape the spiritual and social culture of the city. To get there, the church focuses on four things: preaching, worship, kids and hospitality. Those four add up to one thing, a powerful Sunday morning where people meet Jesus.
So how does a church keep from being busy here and there? It stays in its lane. And that means three lanes.
1. Stay in the Right Lane
There are right lanes morally, ethically and theologically. But there is also a functionally right lane, a way of doing ministry that actually accomplishes the mission.
Jesus said of false prophets, “You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?” (Matthew 7:16). You cannot plant apple seeds and expect oranges. If you know the destination, the route is already decided. Someone driving from south Alabama to Birmingham does not get to choose I-10; the destination itself says I-65.
The same is true for a church. We don’t get where we’re going by default. We get there by design. If the goal is to reach a city for Jesus Christ, the church has to do the things that move it in that direction.
2. Stay in Our Lane
Paul told the Corinthians that he would “boast only with regard to the area of influence God assigned to us” (2 Corinthians 10:13). Every church, every pastor and every believer has a realm of influence. It is not chosen by preference or by habit. It comes from God.
“Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint” (Proverbs 29:18). Without a word from God about what a church is called to do, people run everywhere at once.
How do you know you have found your lane? Paul answers: “For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends” (2 Corinthians 10:18). The commendation of the Lord shows up in fruit. What is God blessing? What is working? One pastor in San Antonio noticed that every time he invested in small groups, his church grew, and every time he shifted resources elsewhere, growth stalled. He found his lane by watching where the fruit was.
3. Stay in My Lane
The Old Testament pictures God’s people working through kings and priests. When King Joash and Jehoiada the priest worked together, Judah turned back to God: “Joash did what was right in the eyes of the LORD all the days of Jehoiada the priest” (2 Chronicles 24:2). When everyone is in their lane, traffic moves smoothly.
But King Uzziah shows what happens when someone leaves their lane. He was a strong and successful king, and then “he grew proud, to his destruction” (2 Chronicles 26:16). He walked into the temple to burn incense, a task God had given only to the priests. Azariah and eighty priests stood in his way, and leprosy broke out on Uzziah’s forehead.
The kingship and the priesthood were meant to be separate. Only Melchizedek and Jesus Christ, “a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 5:6), rightly hold both.
The lesson cuts both ways. Ministers should not try to run the church like a business; the church does some business, but it is the representation of Jesus Christ in the community. And people gifted for the marketplace should not try to take over the role God has given to those called to lead the church. Uzziah’s problem was not a lack of passion. It was pride that pulled him out of his lane.
God gives exceptional grace inside the lane He assigns. There is no favor outside it.
Addition by Subtraction
When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, the company was making dozens of products and none of them were great. He drew a simple four-square grid and cut the product line down to four computers. Good ideas were thrown out, not because they were bad but because they were not the main thing. That focus set the stage for the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad.
Churches need the same courage. Sometimes you have to do less so you can do more. Sometimes you have to go slow so you can go fast. Focus is not a loss. It is how a church gets powerful enough to reach people in every corner of its city, out on the “highways and hedges” (Luke 14:23).
The lesser really is blessed by the greater. Stay in your lane, and watch what God does.