Leading Distracted People - Christianity Today

In the 1990s, I was introduced to a new technology that only required my attention every three days or so: the Internet. I would plug the phone cord into my computer and sit through a sequence of bings, bongs, and white noise until I heard those three exciting words, “You’ve got mail!” I was instantly connected to the world through my desktop, and the possibilities were endless and fun. Then something changed. Today the Internet is not so fun. It mostly represents work and obligation and distraction, as attested by my return from a recent vacation, when I was greeted by more than 700 messages. The thought of more email now makes me cringe.

Like most church leaders, I try to maintain the crumbling margins in my life against a world of Facebook posts, phone calls, tweets, text messages, 24/7 news coverage, and constant connection.

Analysis of this colossal shift in culture is not new. Thousands of articles, books, and blogs have been written on how the pace at which we are living is chipping away at our already thin boundaries. A recent New York Times article states that 20 percent of Americans are taking some type of psychological drug to cope with the pressures of our brave new world. Our stress and inability to disconnect for rest and reflection is leading us to early graves.

How has constant connection and endless distraction changed the church’s task? How are we to advance our ministries without compounding the problem? How do we shepherd overwhelmed sheep?

How followers have changed

Possibly the biggest transition since the onslaught of media-saturated culture is that the church’s trajectory is being shaped less by where church leaders are trying to direct it and more by the responses of their followers. A leader’s course matters less when those being led won’t or can’t follow due to an avalanche of distraction, competing messages, and overly stressed lives.

Most of the training we receive focuses on the ways of a leader. Allow me to suggest a more pertinent question: How do digital-age believers follow? They are now showing at least three significant traits.

Resistance to commit

Overwhelmed people don’t commit, at least not long-term. Sure, recruitment has always been an uphill battle, but now the grade is steeper than ever. People don’t search for ways they can be involved; they focus on what they can avoid. The default answer of those we lead is “no” or at best, “maybe.” They’re looking for subtraction, not addition.

This dynamic has hobbled many key events that churches have used for years to shape the lives of their members. Take for example my church’s yearly men’s conference. I’m regularly told that these events are life-changing, but these verbal affirmations don’t match the statistics. Conference attendance has dwindled over the last seven years. By 2011, 70 percent of our attendees were not committing to the event until less than three weeks before the opening session began. Without advance commitments, the event was impossible to plan. It became too much of a fiscal risk to secure retreat center spots that might not fill, so this year we pulled the plug altogether.

I have heard many leaders blame this on the economy or some lack of spiritual fervency, but I could not disagree more. The culprit is not lack of money or spiritual merit, but lack of margin. These spiritual touchstone events have degraded into one more option in an already over-saturated calendar.

The Devil smiles when we disobey God; he’s also pleased with our meaningless distractions.

Think about it this way: how many causes or events were you invited to before the onset of Facebook, Evite, and other social media sites? And now? If you are like me, your invites to quality events have multiplied exponentially. People you may never have seen again after college or high school are suddenly thrust back into your life with a plethora of baby showers, concerts, birthday parties, and movie premieres about orphans in Africa.

The same is true for those you lead. As church leaders know all too well, it’s difficult to lead a group that is being called in a thousand directions.

Inability to focus

One of the Devil’s greatest tools is distraction. It’s a devastating weapon that often flies under a shepherd’s radar. It can alter your course and hinder your purpose. The Devil may smile every time we disobey God blatantly, but he’s just as pleased when he lures us into meaningless distraction. Distraction is the enemy of focus and clarity, two components necessary to lead a spiritual life.

In C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, Screwtape, a senior devil, trains his apprentice, Wormwood, in the art of demonic manipulation. Screwtape recounts a time when his patient—the man he is assigned to tempt—was moments away from a colossal spiritual breakthrough. Seeing 20 years of demonic work beginning to totter, the senior demon suggested to the man that it was time for lunch. Within moments, the patient was halfway across the street in search of the nearest pub, and the threat of a real spiritual breakthrough had passed.

These minor distractions—constant tweeting, text messages, calendar reminders, anxiety-laced news—take us away from the stillness needed to seek God.

Researchers suggest this environment actually changes the neural transmission systems in our brains; those you lead may no longer physically have the ability to focus for extended periods. This is a serious game changer!

Lack of living examples

Without examples, people can’t follow. There is nothing more countercultural than living a deliberate life infused with margin. Unfortunately, in today’s church culture, busyness for God masquerades as effectiveness in leadership. This threat and its spiritual consequences have gone unidentified by the bulk of religious leaders, so entire church cultures and staffs emulate their manic ministry models.

From the Hebrew idea of shalom to the ecclesiastical mandate of seasonal and balanced lives, the Word of God is clear: let your life flow from a divine center of peace. While pursuing this spiritual discipline is always a big topic at weekend retreats, rarely if ever will it appear on a leader’s strategic planning sheet or daily calendar.

Instead we tend to cram our calendars and overwork our staffs, volunteers, and members to the point of exhaustion. Then we tell them to obey the Sabbath so that they can recover and rest. But we are leading and working at a pace that far exceeds a Sabbath’s ability to restore. Christian leaders need to emanate margin and peace as a lifestyle before others will follow.

5 keys to de-cluttered ministry

Shepherding overwhelmed people begins with five elements.

1. Model margin and peace. Overwhelmed people need a place to rest, a shelter from the storm. By becoming people of margin, leaders maintain space so others know they can come to us in the midst of life’s storms. When a pastor regularly displays an air of busyness and distraction, or is overwhelmed with too many spinning plates, he or she loses the ability to become a source of restoration for others.

So how do we do this? First by dismantling the two areas that clutter our lives: communication and scheduling.

Many leaders today communicate too much. They feel a need to answer every message that enters their inbox, even if this is an impossible task. Email and text messaging are cheap and easy forms of contact that provide a sense of accomplishment once answered. But a high-level leader shouldn’t depend on these media to shepherd a flock. The more you rely on email or other digital contact points, the more you will be bound by them. The capacity of your communication devices quickly outstrips your own capacity.

Six months ago, I began to wean my leadership from digital connectivity. I traded my laptop for a tablet because the inconvenient in-screen keyboard and limited functionality tends to keep me off the Internet. For bigger projects I went back to a desktop system, as I tend to focus on my work better when I’m not in a coffee house. I also found that I managed my time more effectively with limited access to the Internet.

I leave 25 percent of my hours unbooked. This leads to quality people-ministry, which is what drew me to pastoring in the first place.

I try to answer fewer than 10 emails per day, only the most important. Otherwise I return emails with a phone call, a tactic that has given me many more pastoral opportunities.

If I know I am going to see a co-worker later in the day, I will respond in person. Not only has this lessened my digital footprint, but it has also increased the quality of my communication with co-workers. I give myself a 48-hour window to respond to all emails and texts as long as they are not time-sensitive or critical. I have found that people are willing to accept my limited connectivity if I am fully present and engaged with them in person.

I also made a major shift in my scheduling paradigm. In the past if every hour of my week was not booked with some meaningful activity, I felt guilty. But I didn’t have room for the unexpected delays and divine appointments God constantly brings my way. Now, I intentionally leave 25 percent of my weekly hours unfilled, a life-saving 10 hours per-week. These hours are usually filled with the type of quality people-ministry that drew me to the pastoral vocation in the first place.

2. Do what you do best. The church needs to get back to majoring in what it does best. Modern church bulletins often blend essential church functions and an eclectic mix of opportunities ranging from Hikers for Jesus to Quilters for Christ. While I don’t think these extra-curricular ministries are ineffective, they shouldn’t be confused with the primary business of the church.

The average follower spends more time editing their socio-spiritual lives than filling them, and their discretionary time has not increased with these options. By providing a smorgasbord approach to church functions, you water down the importance of the events where the church truly shines. Praying together and discussing the Scripture together have suffered from the presence of too many optional activities.

This is something Costco, the warehouse superstore, figured out years ago. Unlike many of their competitors, Costco offers only a limited selection for their customers. At Costco you will only find one brand of ketchup. Average grocery store shelves are crammed with 40,000 products, but Costco only stocks 4,000. Costco found that consumers are willing to buy in greater quantity when they are offered fewer options. When their choices are focused, shoppers are willing to make deeper commitments.

There is certainly a place for social activities; they open doors to relationships with newcomers. But do pastors need to organize and execute them? I believe we should encourage our people to organize these events outside the church’s walls, promoting them through word of mouth and personal social networks. In church communications, they can be listed secondarily to the primary activities. This keeps church functions to a minimum and trains people to take missional initiative.

3. Go deep, not wide. While today’s distracted culture spawns shallow commitments to many things, people will make incredibly strong commitments to what they believe offers authentic relationship and spiritual impact.

Last year I struggled to get 20 men to attend our weekend men’s conference, feeling more like a salesman than a pastor. But things are different with the Joshua Project, a nine-month discipleship journey that requires participants to commit nine Saturday afternoons, two four-day retreats, a 600-page reading list, and $500 in cost. This coming Sunday, 16 men will show up to be considered for 10 spots in this year’s project. I had to beg people to come to the men’s conference, but we have a surplus for the Joshua Project. Do you see the difference?

Maximum impact will be found by going deeper, not wider. The ministry width you seek will come as you focus on digging deeper.

4. Share common vision. The larger the organization, the more difficult it can be to achieve common vision and synergistic scheduling. Churches that lack cohesion often overwhelm their followers with too many choices. Overwhelm today’s digital followers, and they will just hit delete.

If your church’s overall objective is intentional discipleship, then all ministries from children’s to adults’ should pursue this with a passion. You don’t want the men’s ministry promoting one theme, women’s another, and children’s a third. It’s not that neighborhood outreach, social justice, and personal fitness are unworthy goals, but as the old hunter’s saying goes, “If you aim at two rabbits, you’re guaranteed to hit none.”

Common vision also aids in synergistic scheduling. Before we began to pursue a more unified vision as a staff, it was common to find ministries training their volunteers on different days toward different objectives, a very overwhelming experience. This January’s all-church volunteer training day attempts to unify vision between ministries at a single event.

If all ministries hold the same values, it is much easier to host multiple-ministry events, an important strategy for trimming the fat off flabby church calendars. A great goal in this area is for all individual ministries to partner with another ministry on 30 percent of all planned events. That can happen when they’re aiming at the same goal. With fewer events on your calendar, those remaining benefit from synergistic partnering.

5. Set a pace. While I am not a great runner, I excel in one area: pacing. I know within three seconds the exact pace at which I am running. This ability allows me to run faster times and farther distances because I don’t overexert myself in the first half of the race.

In the same way, the organization you lead has a rhythm and a pace. Knowing when you’re moving too fast or too slow will help you to get the most out of yourself and the people you lead.

Mandate a leadership rotation. Limit small groups to eight-week sessions with four-week breaks in between. Shut down the lion’s share of ministry gatherings during Advent and Lent so people can catch their spiritual breath. These tactics will actually quicken volunteers and leaders.

Clarity at the core

The issue of ministering to an overwhelmed and distracted culture is one of the greatest challenges for today’s church. The world is not slowing down anytime soon.

The church sits at a crossroads. Will we continue to align ourselves with the pace of this world, or will we pause and reflect on our ancient foundations and true calling? According to Ephesians 2:14, Jesus is our peace. If our lives don’t reflect this, we are living apart from a divine reality. When divine realities become lived expressions, the kingdom of God is made manifest on earth. The church must overwhelm its people with only one thing: the peace and presence of God.

Adam Stadtmiller is associate pastor at North Coast Calvary Chapel in Carlsbad, California.