What's the Point?

From Alan Weber's Rules of Thumb:



Ask what’s the point of this exercise? It’s the most clarifying question you can ask. It’s the best thing you can do for yourself or anyone asking for advice. If you don’t know what the point of the exercise is, honestly, accurately, and crisply, then you’re going to wander a lot, wasting your time and energy on something you don’t really understand (11).



This little exercise certainly allows a person or an organization to find clarity amidst all of its activities and programs. When I think of church life, typical answers to this question might include the following:

• Tradition (or we've always done it)- now this isn't a terrible answer to this question, as most things get started with a good answer to the "what's the point" question. But as time goes on, we get less clear on what that original answer was.
• Confused purpose (or I think the point is this when we really do it for this)- several years ago when Hillcrest stopped doing Sunday School, much of the argument against stopping Sunday School focused on a missing discipleship opportunity. But when I'd actually talk to people about what they missed about Sunday School, their reasons were ones of relationships or fellowship (I'll miss seeing so and so, it's the only place I connect, etc) then they were of content and discipleship. When we're unclear on the point, the misunderstandings can be significant.

I think over the last few years at Hillcrest and the times that we have either moved away from certain programs or altered different programs, this question and our answer(s) to it really drove much of the momentum and change.