Okay, here’s my disclaimer. I’m not venting due to recent personal experience, but simply had a thought spurred by a long ago experience.
Sacred cows often graze in Christian organizations. The difference between program and mission is easily blurred. A program is often initiated to live out a specific mission conviction. Over time the mission can be lost, but the program continues. When our overriding goal is to sustain the program for program sake, the program has become a sacred cow. The mission is often eclipsed by efforts to perpetuate a program due to past success or memorialized obligation. Never ever forsake mission to perpetuate a program.
I think more leaders and followers need permission to fire the program and re-launch the mission. In one case a program is no longer a culturally relevant missional expression. It’s time to revision. In another case we don’t know what else to do so we just do what we’ve always done hoping for different results. Really? Then there’s the adage that states we’ve always done this program and we can’t just not do it. Why not?
Regardless, you can find happy saints because they’ve perpetuated a program for one more year and it didn’t die on their watch. Even when there’s no new connection or any visible evidence of impact, we’re still happy because we completed another program. Again, when program for program sake is our goal, we’ve truly lost mission.
Here are a couple of questions worth asking? Are there any sacred cows in your pasture? Is it time to ditch a program? Is it time to revision mission? What’s keeping you from the next step?
Well said! So many resist a change just because they have become comfortable with the status quo.
Very true. When we’re too comfortable, it’s hard to realize a reason to change.